“I’m not complaining,” Piper mumbled. “I’m . . . just . . . tired.”
Phoebe slumped to a stump at the side of the road and sat down.
“Just . . . a minute’s rest. . . .” She yawned. “That’s all I need.”
Piper collapsed against Phoebe, leaning her head on her knee.
“Good idea,” she murmured, closing her eyes. In an instant, they were both asleep.
Prue stood in the road, staring at her snoozing sisters, blinking hard and trying not to succumb to slumber herself. This . . . isn’t . . . right, she thought slowly to herself. Why so . . . sleepy? I feel like . . . I’ve . . . been drugged.
Prue’s blue eyes widened slightly. Drugged. That must be it. She took a stumbling step toward Piper and Phoebe.
“Wake . . . up,” she whispered weakly. “Drugged . . . we’ve been drugged . . . a trick . . . I think maybe . . . that fog . . . off the river . . .”
But Prue could barely hold her eyes open. She slumped to her knees at Phoebe’s feet. She was just about to give in to her weariness when she heard a sound in the distance.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Wha . . . ?” Prue whispered.
“AH-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Her eyes flew open. She’d definitely heard that. A distant, menacing cackle.
“Piper,” she rasped. “Phoebe, wake up!”
She shook her sisters’ shoulders.
“What!” Piper said with a scowl, her brown eyes popping open.
“Sleepin’,” Phoebe murmured, batting Prue’s hand away. “Mmmmfffff.”
“AH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAA!”
“Prue,” Piper said, fully awake now. “What was that?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Prue said, lurching herself to her feet. She felt her head spin. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Piper hauled herself up, too.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I feel like my brain’s been replaced with cotton.”
“Me, too,” Prue said. “But we’ve got to move. Get Phoebe up!”
Piper was just reaching for the snoozing Phoebe when they heard a clatter of hooves in a new thicket of trees up ahead. The sinister cackle rang through the air again—it was much closer now.
“Okay,” Prue demanded, “what kind of horse laughs like that?”
“That kind!” Piper screamed, pointing at a bank of trees. An animal—or was it a man?—had just burst through a line of shrubs, spraying twigs and thorns everywhere.
“Oh no,” Piper said, “it’s a centaur. Half man, half horse. They’re like the worst rabble-rousers in all of Greek mythology.”
Prue stared at the creature. It looked like an ordinary brown horse from the waist down. Four hoofed legs, muscular flanks, and a brushy tail. But where a horse’s head and waist should have been, she instead saw a man’s bare torso. He was swarthy and hairy, with a shock of black curls and bushy, glowering eyebrows. The centaur galloped around them, stomping up swirls of dust and throwing back his head to laugh at them mockingly, flashing sharp brown little teeth.
“Yich!” Prue exclaimed. “How many of these messed-up creatures are there in these Greek myths anyway?” Prue demanded with a scowl.
“Too many!” Piper yelled, leaping at Phoebe. “Phoebs, wake up. Wake up!”
“What is it?” Phoebe said woozily, lifting her heavy head. She felt like she was emerging from a dark, dark cave. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling to open. Can’t do it . . . she thought dully. Can’t . . . wake . . . up.
Suddenly, something gripped her around the waist and swooped her into the air.
“Ooof!” she grunted.
Okay, that did the trick. Phoebe’s eyes flew open. Then she shrieked in terror. She was slung across the back of a horse, pressed facedown into the animal’s spine by a powerful human hand. And the horse was galloping away at full speed.
She swung her head around to peer up at her abductor.
“Aaaaaah!” she screamed. “You’re no horse.” She was appalled to be gazing at the hairy back of a man. Somehow, he was sprouting out of the front of this horse’s body. The beast, who was reaching back to hold Phoebe captive, looked over his shoulder and grinned down at her.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” he cackled, revealing a mouth full of rotten brown teeth. Then he took off into the gloom.
“Prue!” Phoebe screamed. “Piper! Save me!”
Prue and Piper gazed after their sister as she was carried off by the centaur. Piper waved her arms in the air, but the beast was too far away. She couldn’t freeze him. She looked at Prue with panic in her eyes.
“There’s nothing to do but chase him down!” she yelled. The sisters took off at a sprint.
“Pruuuuuue!” they heard Phoebe wail in the distance.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” the centaur cackled.
“We’re coming,” Piper gasped.
But after about two minutes of hard sprinting, Prue and Piper began to tire.
“Can’t . . . run . . . anymore,” Prue gasped. “Of all the times . . . for me . . . to slack . . . off at aerobics.”
“Come on!” Piper screeched, stumbling through the trees.
“No,” Prue said, stumbling to a halt. “I have a better-idea.”
With that, her head drooped and her body slumped. Piper stared at her sister and bit her lip. She could tell Prue was in astral projection mode. She just hoped she could throw herself to wherever the centaur had disappeared with Phoebe.
Phoebe thought she was going to throw up. The horse-man was bouncing her so hard, she could barely see straight. That’s why she was sure she was hallucinating when she saw her sister step out from behind a tree—and right into the galloping beast’s path.
“Prue, watch out,” she screamed.
“Aaaaack!” the creature bellowed, wheeling out of Prue’s path just before he crashed into her. He began galloping in the opposite direction.
Somehow, Prue appeared again, standing directly in front of the beast’s clattering hooves. She had her hands planted on her hips, and she was glaring at the creature.
That’s when Phoebe realized that Prue had projected her image into the woods to save her.
The centaur was freaking. Every time he wheeled around, there was Prue, planted in his path with a glare on. When she’d disappeared and reappeared four times, the horse-man finally reared up on his hind legs, bellowing in fear.
“Whoooooa!” Phoebe screamed as she was thrown from his back. She landed with a thud in a pile of mulch.
The centaur cried out again and galloped off into the woods. In a moment, his hoofbeats died away. He was gone. Phoebe stumbled to her feet, rubbing her backside. She looked down at herself—her dress was in tatters, but all her bones seemed to be intact.
“Thanks, sis!” she said to Prue. But Prue just looked at her blankly and then, with a shimmer of light, disappeared.
“Oh, right. I almost forgot that was astral Prue,” Phoebe said. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. “Helllooooo!”
“Phoebe?” It was Piper, yelling in the distance.
“Over here!” Phoebe called into the gloom. She kept yelling until her sisters crashed through the brush and found her.
“My hero!” Phoebe cried, rushing over to give Prue a hug. “What was that horrible thing?”
“A centaur,” Piper explained. “Half man, half horse. They have a nasty reputation. My guess is he was doing somebody else’s bidding.”
“But who?” Phoebe wondered.
“Let’s keep moving,” Prue said, shaking the last of the fog out of her head. “Hopefully we’ll find out soon.”
“Okay, we’ve totally lost that road,” Piper said, frowning and looking around. All they could see was more murky darkness and more trees in every direction. “Which way?”
“How about we take the opposite direction from the centaur,” Phoebe suggested.
“Good a plan as any,” Prue said, nodding grimly.
The sisters forg
ed ahead through the brush. They plodded silently, until they emerged into a glade, a circular clearing bisected by a stream.
“Let’s follow the water,” Piper said. “That’s got to lead to something.”
Prue and Phoebe shrugged and followed her lead. The stream curved and twisted through the trees. It seemed to lead nowhere, but they had no choice but to press on. They hiked and hiked, until Prue stopped and gasped.
“Check it out,” she said, pointing.
The stream flowed directly into a mammoth cave entrance at the base of a tall, craggy mountain. The sisters gazed up.
“I can’t even see the top,” Piper breathed. The awkward, ugly mountain extended up, up, up into a swirling cloud cover.
Gazing into the cave, they saw that its mouth was constructed of boulders. The enormous rocks had been arranged in an almost perfect, graceful arch. It had clearly been built, rather than carved from nature.
“Let’s go in,” Phoebe said.
They stepped into the damp, dank cave. All they could see was a small, dark, unremarkable chamber. Until Phoebe touched Prue’s shoulder and pointed to a back corner of the cave.
“An opening,” she said. “Looks like it leads to another chamber.”
They ducked through the doorway to find a second chamber—dank and dim, much like the first one. This chamber led to another, and then another. They walked steadily from room to room until Piper suddenly stopped.
“Prue, Phoebe,” she whispered. “I just realized something. The light in this cave—it’s not coming from behind us anymore.”
“You’re right,” Phoebe realized, feeling a chill swish across the back of her neck.
“It’s coming from inside the cave,” Prue said.
Clutching one another’s hands, they plunged into the next chamber. And there, sitting on a throne of moldering rocks, was Nikos!
His Greek god tunic had disappeared. So had his paint-daubed artsy look. Instead, he was dressed in a velvet suit, the same driftwood brown color of everything else in Hades. His floppy black curls had been slicked back severely. And he was smoking a long, foul-smelling cigar. He crossed his long legs and sneered at the sisters.
“What took you so long?” he drawled. “My, you look a fright, don’t you?”
“Nikos,” Phoebe said, taking a halting step toward him. “Are you all right? What . . . what’s happened to you? Where are the other models?”
“I’m perfectly all right, now that I’ve escaped my wretched ruse up there,” Nikos said, pointing upward with a curled lip. “I was a starving artist in a little white dress. My lord of darkness, into what depths I plunged to get you to my house.”
Then Nikos threw back his head and laughed.
Phoebe felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She looked desperately at her sisters, who were gazing steel-faced from Nikos to her.
“Who are you?” Prue demanded darkly.
“I’ve already introduced myself,” Nikos snapped. “My name is Nikos. Of course, I didn’t give you my job title, did I?”
“No, I don’t think we had a chance to exchange business cards,” Piper said sarcastically. “I guess you’re not really a painter.”
“No, I’m a prince,” Nikos said.
“Ha!” Phoebe spat.
“Prince of Hades, to be exact,” Nikos continued, curling his lip at Phoebe. “Eventual ruler of the underworld, torturer of the dead, terror of the night, blah, blah, blah. Very boring job, really. My father hates it.”
“Oh, my God,” Phoebe whispered.
“No, not quite yet, Phoebe dear. My father’s the god of the underworld for the time being,” Nikos said lightly. “But maybe someday. Funny coincidence, isn’t it, Prue, that you gave me the role of Hades in your stupid photo? I couldn’t have engineered that better myself.”
Phoebe couldn’t believe this was happening. Of all her dates from hell, this was the ultimate.
“Where are the other models?” Prue asked, stepping threateningly toward Nikos’s throne. “Did you spirit them here?”
“Heh-heh-heh,” Nikos said, heaving himself off his throne and pacing in front of the sisters. “They’re here all right. Perfectly safe, I assure you, although they look as disheveled as you do. They’re tucked away.”
Nikos flicked his hand absently in the direction of yet another cave chamber behind him. This must be an entire network of caves, Phoebe thought. Naturally, an underworld royal palace would be a damp, underground chamber.
“Why did you bring the models here?” Piper demanded.
“Why, isn’t that obvious?” Nikos said. “They’re hostages. They’re bait. They’ve lured you into my web.”
“Okay then, what do you want with us?” Prue demanded.
Nikos tossed his cigar to the floor and glared at Prue, his eyes suddenly flaring red as flaming coal.
“I want nothing with you!” he spat. “Bossy big sister. You were never supposed to be here!”
Piper lifted her hand to her mouth.
“It’s Phoebe you want,” she whispered. “You sent the centaur to kidnap her.”
“Ah, the shy girl in the middle,” Nikos said, still pacing angrily. “She’s not so simple as she looks. Exactly.”
Phoebe clutched her throat.
“So you’re saying, you’ve kidnapped the models, and I’m the ransom?” she croaked.
“One soul.” Nikos cackled as his eyes returned to their normal vivid blue. “That’s all I need. But it couldn’t be just any soul. Oh, that would never work. I needed divinity!”
“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Phoebe pointed out sarcastically. “I’m not really a goddess, Nikos. I just play one on TV.”
“Please, I’m aware,” Nikos said, looking Phoebe up and down again with a sneer. “See, that was my problem. True goddesses are in such short supply these days.”
“Pity,” Prue spat.
“Yes. There are consolation prizes, however,” Nikos said, his features suddenly going dark and sinister. “When you don’t have a goddess, a witch will do!”
With that, he grabbed Phoebe around the waist and pinned her arms to her sides. She kicked and struggled, but Nikos’s grip was, natch, superhuman.
Piper waved her hands to freeze him, but nothing happened.
Nikos threw back his head and laughed.
“You think you can use your little freeze trick on me?” he bellowed. “You are nothing against me. I rule here!”
“Don’t you mean Daddy rules here?” Prue taunted.
Nikos’s face grew even darker, and his eyes glowed red once again.
“Damn you! Damn you to earth,” he bellowed. With one arm still wrapped around the screaming Phoebe, he waved a hand in Prue and Piper’s direction.
The two sisters screamed as they felt themselves fly backward through the cave’s chambers. An instant later they were whirling back through the tunnel that had carried them to Hades in the first place. The chute roared around them like a bellowing monster.
Then, abruptly, the roaring stopped. Prue and Piper found themselves sitting on the Oriental rug in the living room of Halliwell Manor. Right in front of the camera. Right where they’d stood when they’d zapped themselves into Hades. Nothing had changed, not even the hands on the grandfather clock. It was as if they’d never left.
Except one thing was different.
Phoebe was gone.
CHAPTER
6
Piper lurched to her feet and gazed wildly around the living room. Part of her believed Phoebe had landed behind the couch. Or that maybe none of this had even happened, and her sister was about to pop out of the kitchen, munching on an apple. “Phoebe?” she called hopefully.
Prue touched her sister gently on the shoulder and pointed into the sunroom. Piper spun to see that the models were still heaped on the floor and slumped on the wicker furniture, snoring away.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Prue said, her voice choked. “We were there. And he’s got Phoebe.”
&n
bsp; “He’s got Phoebe,” Piper said, pointing at the most beautiful body in the pile of models—Nikos’s earthly self, sleeping peacefully, his cheeks rosy and his curly hair flopping adorably over his forehead.
“He looks like an angel,” Prue said furiously.
“You’d never know he was really a devil,” Piper agreed. “Get him, Prue.”
Prue pointed at Nikos’s sleeping body and waved her hand as violently as she could. I’ll crash him into the wall so hard, every bone in his body will break, Prue thought.
But nothing happened.
Nikos lay between Hera and Ares, snoozing as peacefully as ever.
“What?” Prue blurted. She waved her arm at Nikos again. And again.
Piper ran up to him and poked at his shoulder. She shrieked. Her finger had plunged right through him.
“I guess you’re not the only one who can astral project, Prue,” Piper said. “The jerk’s not even here. He probably knew the first thing we’d do was take revenge on his earthly form.”
“So he shimmered his cowardly butt out of here,” Prue said.
Piper kicked angrily at Nikos’s image and stomped out of the sunroom.
“What do we do now?” she said.
“Attic!” Prue declared.
Together, the sisters rushed up the stairs to The Book of Shadows. Prue pounced upon their trusty book of spells and incantations.
“Let’s see if there’s anything on Hades in here,” she said, flipping quickly through the book. “Hades . . . Hades . . . ’’
She desperately turned page after page. After a few minutes of futile page flipping, Piper said, “How about underworld? Or Lord of the Dead?”
“No, no, and no!” Prue wailed. “Okay, I’ve seen Phoebe do this. Piper, help me out here.”
Prue held her trembling hands over the open Book of Shadows. Piper placed her hands next to hers. They’d both witnessed the moments when Phoebe had held her hands over the book and the pages had magically flipped to just the spell or potion she was looking for.
Their hands trembled in the air. They stared at the book’s yellowed pages. The pages seemed to stare back—that is, they sat there, not moving.
“Concentrate,” Prue ordered.
“I am,” Piper said through gritted teeth. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Soul of the Bride Page 6
