Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Fucking son of a bitch,” I shouted into the amethyst sky. “I should be there.”

  It was only then that I felt several beings behind me. I stopped and spun.

  Souls, quite literally hundreds, maybe thousands of them, walked behind me.

  “Go away,” I told them. “You already followed me here once.” I never forgot a soul, and I knew at a glance that all of them were mine, souls I had escorted here, going back millennia. I kept walking, and they continued to follow me. “Do you really have nothing better to do?” I muttered.

  They followed me to Hades’ palace. I walked through the front door. The old heavy wood doors were gone, and inside, the palace was nothing but ruin and debris. A few years of monsters and demons having the run of the place had certainly not been kind.

  I walked through the old halls, corridors I had walked millions of times in the course of my work for Hades. I reached out and ran my fingers along the black stone walls, still smooth and cold to the touch. I ended up in Hades’ old throne room. I remembered well Hades standing on the dais, giving his final judgments as souls, Furies, and Guardians looked on. It felt like yesterday, and like an eternity ago, all at the same time.

  How would he have judged me?

  A failure. He would have judged me a failure, I thought as I walked through the throne room and into what had once been Hades’ and Persephone’s private living quarters.

  These, too, were in shambles. Dishes, vases, and artwork owned by the former god of death and his consorts lay strewn across the dusty stone floors. Broken furniture littered the corners of the rooms. I had no real emotional attachment to this area, not as I did to the throne room. I had never been in this area of the palace.

  I walked through the rooms, arriving in what had once clearly been Hades’ bedroom. Clothing was strewn everywhere amid the broken bedroom furniture. I bent and started sifting through the fabric. If I had to spend eternity here, I had no intention of spending it naked as the day I was created.

  Of course, all the clothing was black. Most of it had been Hades’, but I eventually found a black tunic and black pair of pants which had very likely belonged to Tisiphone. I slipped these on, happening to glance over my shoulder as I did. I froze, dropping the tunic I had been about to pull over my head.

  Wings.

  Black. Leathery. Sprouting from my back as if they had never been gone.

  I gave them an experimental flap, and they moved, stirring the dust around me. I let out a low, bitter laugh. It had only taken losing everything and leaving the ones I love in dire peril. Somehow, in hindsight, they hardly seemed worth it.

  Yet if I had to be stuck here, at least I could have the skies.

  I bent and picked up the tunic again and pulled it on, working my wings into the wingholes, grateful that the Furies’ wings were even larger than mine. Usually, this part of getting dressed was an awkward affair. It was a matter of maneuvering the back of the shirt on first, over my wings, slipping them through the slits on the back of the garment, then pulling the rest of it over my head and putting my arms through.

  Dressed, I felt a little more in control. Yes, it was an illusion, as all ideas of control are. I did not care. I glanced around a bit more, knowing that I would not be lucky enough to find a weapon lying in the dust anywhere. Those, undoubtedly, had been the first things taken when the palace had been overrun.

  I made my way back outside. When I stepped into what had once been a courtyard between the palace and the prison area, I did so with a breath of relief. The palace, like so many things now, was a reminder of things that could no longer be, people we had lost, an era that had, for better or worse, come to an end. I would not be spending much time there, if I could at all help it.

  The prison area loomed ahead, high black razor-topped walls, and that was my next destination. As I walked through the courtyard, I tried not to think too much about the courtyard of Mollis’s palace, where we had sometimes sat, lingering over tea or coffee, watching her children play. I glanced over my shoulder when I was about halfway to where the gateway had once stood and realized with more than a little irritation that I was being followed by the souls again.

  Millions. There had to be millions of them, all brought here by my hand. More had joined the herd (for that is what they reminded me of, a herd of cattle following me around) since I had gone into Hades’ palace. They were a very visual reminder of the work of my lifetime, dressed in clothing from all periods, countries, and cultures.

  I walked a few more steps, and with each step I became more annoyed by the souls I could hear, still moving, still following me. I spun around again to demand that they leave me alone before I hurt them. The words died on my lips. One of the souls, a woman, stood a few feet in front of the others.

  And… I knew her. I remembered her, but it was more. Blond hair, blue eyes. Not just any blue eyes. Eyes the color of the sea, the sky… eyes I had looked into a hundred times, and felt safe and loved.

  All I could do was stare. She watched me, studied me as if she was trying to make up her mind about something.

  “Rhiannon Matthews?” I asked quietly.

  She nodded, and I felt my knees buckle. It was only through sheer force of will that I remained on my feet.

  Good Hades, I could not do this. Eternity here was bad enough. Seeing those eyes, his eyes, from the face of his mother, was just too much.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me. Her voice was strong, steady. A man stood just behind her, and I recognized him, too. My eyes burned with new tears, and I shook my head and turned around, facing away from the hundreds of souls that were watching me as I tried to regain my composure.

  If Brennan had his mother’s eyes and hair, he had inherited the rest of his looks from his father. Same narrow nose, same square jaw, same strong, towering build.

  “I know you,” Rhiannon said. I felt her and her husband, Sean… I remembered now. His name was Sean. Brennan had named his son after his father. I had not collected his soul. That had been one of my sisters. Yet he was here with his wife, who I well-remember collecting when her time had come. I had even told Brennan about it.

  I wiped the tears off of my face.

  “I collected you,” I answered, irritated that my voice had a weak, wavering quality to it.

  “You did. But you’re also my son’s wife,” she said softly. I closed my eyes, and no matter how hard I willed it otherwise, tears flowed, and I was incapable of stopping them.

  “Yes,” I whispered. Rhiannon and Sean were silent behind me. “How did you know?”

  “Word gets around, even here. Souls talk,” Sean Matthews said. Damn it all, his voice was even very much like Brennan’s.

  “Is he all right?” Rhiannon asked.

  “He is alive. He fights,” I said, hoping it was true. I took a deep breath and made myself turn back around. “He is a good, strong man. You should be proud.”

  Rhiannon smiled. “We are. I didn’t know, when we were alive… I didn’t know about Artemis. I didn’t know what I was.”

  I nodded. “Even without the immortal blood in his veins, he is one of the strongest people I have ever known. And you have a grandson,” I said, glancing at Brennan’s father.

  “We heard. That is… that is amazing,” Sean said, and I nodded.

  We stood in awkward silence for a few moments. Rhiannon started to speak, closed her mouth, then started to talk again. “You’re family. You aren’t alone here. I hope you know that. Mostly, you just have to watch out for the more asshole demons, and every once in a while, something will get into the monsters that were imprisoned here and they’ll start rampaging. But at least that gives you a break from the boredom,” she finished, and Sean nodded.

  “Thank you.” I glanced at the rest of the souls again, anything to avoid having to look into those eyes again.

  “It is ironic that you follow me now, when I quite well remember having to chase more than a few of you down when your time came,” I told them. A few
in the crowd laughed, some looked sheepish. “I can do no more for you.”

  This was met with silence and after a moment, I blew out an exasperated breath. “Why are you following me?”

  “We know you. You’re not one of the monsters that roam here, or one of the immortals who insist on not seeing us,” one of the other souls said. Brennan’s parents stood in the same spot, watching me.

  “Do you see them much? The immortals?” I asked, thinking of Triton. If I had resurrected here, so had he.

  “They sit at the former gateway, hoping it will reopen and they can have their lives back,” another soul, a woman who had died when the Conquistadors had attacked Tenochtitlan, answered. She said it with a roll of her eyes. One thing souls learn almost immediately is that there is no getting one’s life back. There is no amount of begging, demanding, pleading, or bargaining that can make that happen.

  At her words, I paused and focused. Once I quieted myself, I could feel them. There were more than a few spirit daemons, killed during their attack on Detroit. I had ended a few of them myself. That would be a fun reunion, I thought wryly. Autumn and Winter were there, as were some of the other lesser gods that had been reported missing by those they had been close to in the last couple of years, victims of Persephone’s madness and, for a time, my sisters’ willing hands.

  With a start, I felt the souls of two Guardians. Original Guardians. It only took a moment for me to realize that this was where my two missing sisters had been all this time, that Amalia and Zara had not merely been hiding or plotting or lying in wait—

  Wait right there, I chastised myself. They very likely could have been plotting. In that case, their deaths were a blessing. Two fewer troublesome idiots to cause problems for those I had left behind.

  I started walking again, shaking my head at the fact that the souls continued to follow me. Were they going to do this forever? If so, I would definitely be spending a lot of time flying. I glanced up at the sky. As much as I wanted to soar at that moment, it felt wrong. I was in mourning, and I knew my love was as well. The joy of flight would wait. For how long, I did not know. All I knew was that if I flew now, when I felt so full of loss and anger and my own failings, that one beautiful thing, the only beautiful thing I had left, would be tainted by it forever. We Guardians have long memories. I would never be able to disassociate my death and flying if I took to the skies now.

  Someday, maybe. Right now, it was enough just knowing that I could if I wanted to. Though if I had to choose between that and staying near Brennan’s parents, I would choose tarnishing flying. They were nice. They were warm. They were everything I would imagine Brennan’s parents to be. And it hurt like hell.

  I entered the prison, which was, like everything else full of debris and destruction. This area had taken the worst of it, clearly. The prisoners and those demons left to guard them when the gateway had been closed by Nyx had clearly had a long, bloody struggle. It was not clear who had won, or if anyone had.

  Either way, the area was empty now, save for a cluster of maybe two dozen minor gods and spirit daemons huddled like caged animals around what had once been the gateway to the mortal realm. Two Guardians, my sisters, sat a bit away from them.

  Amalia and Zara turned as one, then leapt to their feet.

  “Little sister,” Zara said. I steeled myself against the jolt of joy I felt at her voice, low and calm. Amalia and Zara still looked how I had looked before I had taken the time to transform; tiny, maybe four feet tall. Their eyes glowed red, as mine did only when I became angry or, surprisingly, when I was feeling especially lustful, and that had only happened with Brennan.

  Better not to think about that just now, unless I wanted to become a sobbing mess again.

  My presence by then had been noted by the other assembled immortals, who had finally turned away from the empty space where the gateway should have been.

  “Eunomia,” Winter said in her soft, clear voice. “Who got you?”

  “Persephone,” I said. “I am sorry for your end. I wish I could have prevented it. I wish I had known—”

  “It was not your fault,” Autumn said firmly.

  “Our only concern now is how the Earth fares,” Winter said. “How is it?” The pinched look on her face expressed how worried she was.

  “Your loss is being felt,” I said. “Drought, heat. Gaia and the Earthwitches do all they can to help things continue growing, but without the renewal your presence gives it…” I trailed off.

  “I feared as much. Yet we also hoped that maybe there was enough of our power left lingering there to help. We both focused on pushing our power into the earth when we knew we were dying,” Autumn said.

  “For a while, it worked,” I told her. “We had a very brief period of cooling and rain, but nowhere near what we are accustomed to.”

  “It sickens me that this mess was caused by a fertility immortal,” Winter said. “If there was ever any evidence needed that our kind has lost our way, that is it.”

  “She is grieving,” I said, and all of them gave me looks of disbelief. “It does not excuse what she has done. Sometimes, grief does not leave you in your right mind. She let her anger and grief consume her, and it twisted her. I only wish we had seen it before it got to this point,” I added quietly, thinking of my friends, my husband. Were they still battling her? They must be, or they would all be showing up here. Which reminded me… “have any of you seen Triton?”

  “Triton?” Winter asked, and I nodded.

  “Persephone ended him as well, just before me.”

  All of the immortals seemed taken aback by the words.

  “We finally figured out she was behind the undead. The deaths of so many of you,” I said, meeting the eyes of Nemesis, Angelia, Penthus, a few other minor gods we had feared lost. That loss was now confirmed, and it weighed on me. “She realized we had uncovered her role, I suppose, and she attacked. She made herself more powerful—”

  “By eating immortal hearts,” Amalia finished, and I nodded.

  “I think she learned that from our sisters. They helped her create the first undead, and she saw how eating the hearts made them more powerful. So she took it to an immortal level, and began taking the hearts of gods,” I said. “Who killed you?” I asked Zara.

  “Our sisters,” she said. “Amalia and I both took off right after Hermes ordered the Guardians to torture Hades’ daughter’s mate. From what we see now, we were not wrong to leave.”

  “No, you were not,” I said softly.

  “But they found us,” Zara said. “Four of them. And they gave us a choice: join them or die. You see where we ended up,” she finished.

  I nodded. I looked toward where all of their attention had been before I had arrived, at the empty space where the gateway had once been. “They are all battling now. The world is ending. Nyx decided that it has all become too unbalanced. She is destroying it to create it anew.”

  This statement earned a combination of gasps, muttered curses, and statements about Nyx being a bitch that nearly brought a smile to my face. It was nice to hear that I was not the only one who thought those things about our Creator. Of course, these immortals had been trapped here thanks to Nyx’s decision to close the gateway, so I suppose they did not exactly adore her, either.

  “Persephone was behind all of this. Not our sisters being bitches, maybe, but everything else,” Zara said. “She was the one who ordered our sisters to track us down. She had them kill those immortals,” she said, gesturing to Autumn, Winter, Nemesis, Penthus, and Angelia.

  “She had them, along with the Fury Alecto, kidnap the children of Mollis, Hephaestus, and… Artemis’s grandson,” I finished weakly. I could not say his name aloud. I would not do it with an audience. “She took the heart of Hades’ grandson. We think, more than once.”

  Shocked silence echoed around me at that statement. “She… oh gods,” Zara said, realizing what Persephone’s end game might have been. I nodded and the other immortals looked at me
, confusion on their faces.

  “The intention, according to the Oneiri who was working for her, was to bring Hades back. She had apparently tried to create a body and reanimate it. From what they know, the experiment failed. We think she lost all semblance of right and wrong when she realized it had not worked. We think she harvested young Hades’ heart at least once for herself. We did not realize she had already had your hearts,” I told the gods who had died at my sisters’ hands, on Persephone’s orders.

  “This is insane,” Amalia said, shaking her head. All I could do was nod in agreement.

  “She will destroy them all,” Penthus said.

  “If so, we will have a lot more company here, at least,” one of the spirit daemons I had killed during the Battle of Detroit said. She kept shooting me angry, worried glances.

  “Oh good. We can all sit here staring at nothing together,” Amalia said, and rolled her eyes.

  “At least there will be more of us,” the spirit daemon argued, and a few others agreed with her. Those that had been here longer seemed more pleased with the prospect. They were used to the routine of nothing, and it was clear that those most recently sent here by Persephone and her minions were not.

  “Did you miss the part where the Earth is being destroyed?” Autumn asked in a raised voice. “This is nothing to celebrate. What the hell was Nyx thinking?”

  “Balance,” my sisters and I all said. Zara met my eyes, and we both smiled. I glanced behind me to see my horde of souls, still standing maybe thirty feet behind me.

  “Why don’t your souls follow you around?” I asked my sisters. “Or did they just finally stop?”

  Amalia and Zara looked at the souls. “I have never had souls follow me like that,” Amalia said.