“Aw, come on,” he chuckled. “Don’t be like that. You know you’re like my sister.”
“Your sister has work to do,” I said with a smile, his usual charm pulling me out of my mood somewhat.
“Really though, Katrina,” he said, turning serious. “Was it about that body they found at Barry’s?”
“How do you know about that?” I asked suspiciously.
“The whole town is talking about it, Hurricane,” he said, worry etched into his features. “There hasn’t been anything like this happen around here in . . . Well, ever, I think.”
By then, we’d arrived at the doors of the barn and I went inside, grabbing a shovel off the wall as I headed towards the side where the horses were stalled.
“He had some questions about work last night, that’s all,” I said, laying the shovel down as I reached the first stall.
“What did you tell him?”
“What is this, the Inquisition?” I laughed, opening the gate and slipping a rope around the horse’s neck before leading him out.
“I just want to make sure everything is okay,” Rick laughed, helping me do the same to the other three horses.
“Everything is fine,” I said, trying more to convince myself.
We led the horses out to the field and set them lose, letting them mingle together and graze.
“Well, you let me know if I can help with anything,” he said, handing the ropes he’d handled back to me.
“You wanna muck out some stalls with me?” I teased.
“I got my own work to do,” he laughed.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, aiming a good natured and purposefully missed kick at him. “Get to it!”
Thankfully, I was able to spend the majority of my day doing work on the ranch. There was always something that needed to be done and I was more than happy to have my mind taken off the events of the previous night.
After everything was finished and I was once again freshly showered and dressed, I decided it was time to take care of the box under my bed. Daddy was smoking on the front porch, a weekly ritual he’d had for years, so I quietly slipped through the back door and out into the woods that lined that side of our property.
I walked in the twilight, night air for a good while before I finally felt that I was far enough out to not be noticed. Before I left the house, I’d added a tiny hand shovel, a lighter, and some lighter fluid to the box that held my indiscretions. Pulling it all out now, I set to digging a hole just big enough for the container to set in.
Once the hole was dug, I laid the box inside, spraying it and its contents down with the lighter fluid. With another flick of my hand, I set it all ablaze and sat down to watch it burn into nothing.
The flames licked at their prey hungrily, devouring it at a steady pace. Heat from the display kept me warm as the sun finished setting and night overtook the area. I wasn’t bothered by it, though—I’d played in these woods many times before as a child and easily knew my way home.
As I stared down at the smoldering ashes left in the hole, the only sign anything other than a bar fight had happened last night, I felt a shiver of disgust wash over me. Images of what had almost happened to me filled my mind, as well as the memory of what the blood spurting all over my skin had felt like.
After I’d escaped to my truck, I’d laid in the front seat and waited. I didn’t want to be seen fleeing the scene. About an hour had passed before I’d finally sat up and driven home, still covered in the bloody mess. Thankfully, I’d been able to get inside the house and clean myself up without anyone seeing me. Most of the hands had already left for the evening and Daddy was in the den watching his program. If the visit from the sheriff was any sign, though, I was far from being in the clear.
Slowly, I began to shovel the dirt back into the hole, burying the remains of my terrified feelings with the ashes.
“Did you do as I asked?”
I stiffened at the voice, recognizing the darkness from before.
Chapter Five
“It’s only been a day, I said, turning around to look at the man who should have been myth. “I didn’t expect to see you around very soon.”
“Things progressed much quicker than I anticipated,” he said, leaning his back against a tree. “As it happens, I need your services now instead of when I’d originally planned. Don’t make me ask again—did you do as I asked?”
“I did,” I said, crossing my arms over my torso, feeling the familiar searching of his eyes tugging at me. “There wasn’t a whole lot to learn, to be honest.”
“It was enough,” he said, his voice clipping in an impatient manner. “I only wanted you to have a basic understanding before I sent you in.”
“Sent me in?”
He left the question unanswered, hanging in the air with the smoke from my fire and his misty presence.
“Persephone, Hades’s wife, is due back to the Underworld within week’s end. It appears that we are to have an early, long winter this year. She was quite put out about it.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not sure where he was going with the conversation.
“When I stopped by to have a little conversation with her about it,” he continued, starting to swirl some of the smoke between his fingers as if it were a toy. “She was put off by my offer to help her to escape her prison for good. I wasn’t so surprised actually. She may be bitter about having to stay there, but the queen of the Underworld loves the power she has there. What woman doesn’t love power, really?”
I wrinkled my nose at the insult, staying silent. He would say what he had to say eventually, if our last encounter had been any indication.
“Anyway, when she wouldn’t cooperate, I took care of it. We have big plans, plans that she would have hindered more than helped.”
“Wait,” I said, catching on to what he’d been saying in a roundabout way. “Did you kill Persephone?”
“I did,” he said with a wicked grin. “With all the darkness she had inside her, it was more than easy to strangle her from the inside out. Of course, gods can only be killed by a blade that’s been dipped in the water of the River Styx, so there was that little extra, fun part as well.”
He fingered the curved blade at his side, the sick smile on his face making my stomach turn.
“Here’s the part where you come in,” he spoke again, pushing away from the tree and walking towards me at a slow, over exaggerated pace.
My skin started to prickle as I realized I’d agreed to do something that was going to end very badly for me.
“What do you want me to do?”
“You,” he said with a chuckle, pointing a finger at me. “You are going to take her place.”
Suddenly, he clapped his hands together and all of the smog around us sucked together, forming another one of the copies I’d encountered the night before. It wasn’t me this time, though.
She was beautiful; I didn’t know how else to think of her. Tall and fit, her light brown hair was long and curled, framing the soft, flawless skin of her face perfectly. Striking green eyes shone out from under full lashes, almost taking away any notice of her perfectly shaped, cherry red lips. A flowing, black dress hugged her form, giving her the air of someone regal.
At the same time, she appeared menacing and dark, much like the version of myself I’d see before. It made me afraid of her, almost as if she would destroy me if I so much as continued to look at her.
Erebos pulled a box from the pocket of his dark coat and opened it, revealing a sparkling diamond ring. At his motion, the form began to disappear, breaking apart into smoky wisps that spun around in the air and then dived into the ring, turning the rock blacker with each strand that was added.
“I can’t impersonate a goddess,” I said, half laughing in disbelief. “I don’t even know how I wou—are you nuts?! Everything I read said it was impossible to trick Hades. I’d rather not be the next person forced to push a giant rock up a mountain every day for the rest of eternity.”
>
“For a human,” Erebos said, pulling the ring from the box and examining it once all the smoke had been locked inside. “It is impossible to trick Hades. For me, it is easy.”
“I’m a human,” I said in a panic.
“But you have my help,” he said smoothly.
I could see the darkness sifting around in the diamond, slowly becoming more solid as it took on its new form.
“I can’t leave town,” I said suddenly, another bad situation rising in my mind. “I’m a suspect in the murder that you committed. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“When all goes as I have planned, it will not matter,” he said, looking up from the jewelry. “If I were you, I would be more worried about what’s going to happen if you don’t follow through on your part of the deal.”
“My part?” I laughed at him, not caring that he could easily destroy me for my rudeness. “What about your part? It’s been a day! I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen anything in the way of what you promised me and I don’t think you should be coming to collect on your end without having filled yours.”
“Do not think to order me around,” he said, his voice dangerously low, the darkness around me thickening slightly. “You who are weak and nothing! I come to you with an offer of royalty and it is not good enough for you?”
I could feel his anger growing around me and took a step back, tripping slightly and stumbling.
“I am not required to fill my end of the deal until yours is taken care of as well. It would do you good to remember that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice shaky. “I just don’t know why you want me to do this. What could you possibly gain from it?”
“That is my business,” he said, his voice cooling some. “To appease you though, go home. Look in the back window and then tell me what you see.”
He leaned back against another tree, spinning the ring in his palm, apparently content to wait for me.
I hesitated for a moment, not really sure if I was supposed to leave or not. After he continued to ignore me, though, I started moving forward, passing by him and making my way back through the woods.
As I walked the unbeaten path, my mind tried to make sense of what was happening. In the space of a day, I’d been thrown into a world that didn’t exist. If that wasn’t enough, I was in trouble in my own world because of it. And now I was supposed to go in deeper? How was I supposed to trick a god, let alone the master of the Underworld? What would happen to me if I refused? Or worse—what would happen to me if I did go and was found out?
I shuddered, remembering feelings of my almost rape. Hades had raped his own wife after kidnapping her, hadn’t he? Would he do the same to me?
The lights from the house appeared before me in the distance, the warm feeling of my home pushing out some of my scared thoughts. If I stayed home, Daddy would take care of me. There couldn’t be enough evidence for them to pin the murder on me, could there? But going back on my deal with Erebos . . .
Finally, I left the tree line and walked up to the back of the house, ready to go in the back door and put all the nightmares out of my mind. Reaching for the doorknob, I looked in the back window and stopped.
Mom.
She was sitting at the dining table with Daddy, crying as he rubbed her back with one hand and held her hand with the other. A coffee mug sat in front of her, some of her tears falling into it as her shoulders shook. Daddy was muttering something to her, placing kisses on her forehead after every few words.
Shocked, I turned and headed back into the woods, my head spinning with the image of my parent’s apparent making up.
“My mom is here,” I said as soon as Erebos was back in my sight. “Did you do that?”
“Not directly,” he said from the spot I’d left him in. “But she is here because of my actions, yes.”
“I thought you were going to make her pay? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I removed the darkness from her that was causing her drinking problem,” he said smoothly, still playing with the ring in his hand. “She now feels the pain and suffering of knowing that she destroyed her family. She left the only man who ever really loved her. She acted terribly as a mother. She let herself be overcome by a drink. Trust me, she feels pain. She knows the suffering you wished for her to discover.”
“You did your part of the deal,” I said slowly, closing my eyes briefly as a sick feeling overcame me. “I can’t back out of mine.”
“That’s what I was hoping you would say,” he said, his gaze finally turning to me, the sick smile contorting his features.
He stood up and held a hand out to me, beckoning for me to come closer. I did as he asked, a knot growing ever larger in my stomach.
“This ring,” he said, sliding it onto my finger. “It will cast the image of Persephone over you as soon as we have entered into the Underworld. To everyone there, you will appear as the goddess.”
“Will it fool Hades?” I asked nervously. “I mean, he was married to her. Won’t he recognize the differences, like I did with my copy?”
“That is the joy of it being Persephone,” he said gleefully. “She hated Hades, therefore her darkest self was always displayed to him. You will look just as she always did.”
I nodded, gulping down a few quick breaths as he released my hand after examining the ring once more.
“Do not break the stone,” he warned. “You will have no cover if that happens. I will not come to save you.”
“What am I supposed to do while I’m there?” I asked, my feet automatically following him as he began to leave our spot and head further into the woods.
“I need you to find something for me,” he said over his shoulder. “Because of my current, uh, status, I am not free to wander around looking for it myself.”
“What is it?” I sped up my pace as we entered a part of the woods I hadn’t ever really explored.
“A helmet.”
“Hades helmet?”
“Of course.”
“I read about that online,” I said, happy to finally know something again. “It makes the wearer invisible, doesn’t it? And it creates fear, or something like that.”
“Just a few of the things it can do,” he said, turning sharply and heading towards a small hill.
“Why do you need it?”
“That is my business.”
Silence fell between us and we moved through the foliage and came upon the hill.
“This is where we part ways,” he said, turning towards me finally.
“It is?”
I looked around in confusion. For some reason, I’d been expecting some grand spectacle, big black gates, a winged guard, something. But everything looked exactly the same, nothing special about the place at all.
“Listen very carefully,” he said seriously. “You have until the end of winter to find the helmet, no longer. The Underworld is a massive place, take care to not get lost. I would hate for all of my planning and hard work to be for naught.”
“I understand,” I said, a sudden thrill of excitement shooting through me. I felt bad for it, because I knew what I was doing was crazy and stupid, but it felt like I was finally taking part in the adventure I’d always wanted.
“When you go through this door,” he said, pointing at the hill. “You will be in a maze of tunnels. These tunnels lead to a door to the Underworld. You will then get on the ferry, which will take you to the palace. It is all waiting for you—for Persephone. The ring won’t work until you’re through the maze.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to me quickly as he looked around, apparently nervous for some reason.
“Don’t let anyone see you in the maze. This will feel more difficult than it sounds, you’ll understand why once you’re in there. You will know if someone is really coming or not because the voices will disappear.”
“Voices?” Things were not making sense again and I looked down at the paper he’d handed me.
I had the words left and right written on it, arranged in a straight line down the paper.
“Are these directions?” I asked, still looking at it.
“I must go,” he said, his voice fading away. “It’s not safe to be this close to the gate.”
I looked up in time to see the smoke drifting away on the breeze, barely discernible in the moonlight.
“Wait,” I called out. “What do I do if I get caught?”
There was no answer. He was already gone.
I turned back to the hill, looking at it in confusion. There was no door anywhere that I saw.
Turning in a circle, I looked around for a sign or clue, anything that would enlighten me to how I was supposed to get into the maze as I’d been instructed. I found nothing though, which didn’t surprise me. It wasn’t like they’d erect a huge sign that read “this way to the Underworld.”
Frustrated, I put the paper in my pocket and stepped towards the hill. Maybe there was a secret rock or branch I had to move.
Good grief. I’d put myself in an action movie.
Regardless, I started moving things around, but still to no avail. In frustration, I sat myself down on the ground and leaned back against the tiny rise. To my surprise, the ground fell away from behind my back and I tumbled backwards into dirt, coughing as I disturbed dust up into the air.
As the space cleared, I looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. The more I took in, the more I was certain.
I was in the maze.
Chapter Six
I looked around, trying to find the door that I had apparently fallen through, but there was no sign of it anywhere. The tendrils of the cave around me stretched out in every direction, seemingly leaving a million passages for one to wander into and never return from. Escaping the way I’d come was completely out of the question.
I checked the ring on my finger, making sure it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck somewhere I shouldn’t be with no way to hide. Thankfully, it looked fine, the milky blackness of the smoke inside giving the glossy outside a matte finish look.
Hades (The God Chronicles #3) Page 4
