Amy Sumida - Tracing Thunder (The Godhunter Series Book 13)

by Unknown

  “You don't feel safe in Hell?” Az had been so quiet, I'd almost forgotten he was there.

  “No, it's not that,” I felt his wings brush my arm and looked over to see him in full angel form. I wondered if he felt the need to display his wings when he saw other gods with wings. Like a peacock showing off his plumage.

  “Is that chick holding snakes?” I heard Aidan say from behind us.

  “No, she's just happy to see you,” Lucius shot back.

  “I know it's not the most pleasant stroll but I hope you don't feel threatened when we walk through Hell,” Azrael persisted, ignoring the lion banter.

  “No, I just don't like the view.”

  “Well the view's about to get much worse,” a cackling voice carried back to me and I transferred my gaze forward. Tisiphone was talking to me. Great. “Welcome to Hell!”

  “Yeah, see that line's already been used on me by the Devil himself, so anything after that just kind of falls short,” I grimaced at her and her face went slack. “Three snakes aren't as impressive as cloven hooves, black wings, and a spiked tail.”

  “Greetings Tisiphone,” Hades spoke into the uncomfortable silence. “We travel through Tartarus tonight.”

  “We're going to wake the Titans,” Hekate called over to the woman.

  “Really?” She lowered the hand with the snakes. “Can I come?”

  “Not into their territory,” Hades said, “but you may come with us afterward.”

  “What are you doing afterward?” She narrowed her crazy eyes on Hades.

  “We're going to battle Zeus,” Hekate spoke again, earning a chagrined look from Hades. “Oh, sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Thank you,” Hades started to speak again but Tisiphone cut him off.

  “Oh, girl,” she said to Hekate. “The Lamiai came through here awhile ago. They said to tell you they'd wait for you at the gate.”

  “Thanks, Tisi,” Hekate nodded.

  “You're bringing the Lamiai?” Hades turned to ask Hekate.

  “Not to see the Titans,” Hekate shrugged, “but they want to come with us to fight Zeus.”

  “Lamiai?” I whispered to Azrael.

  “Plural for lamia,” Azrael whispered back. When I continued to stare at him in confusion, he elaborated with one single word. “Vampires.”

  “What? I thought vampires came from Blue.”

  “You thought Blue was the only vampire god?” Azrael looked surprised. “There are vampire myths everywhere.”

  “Yeah but Greek?” I scoffed. “I didn't know the Greeks had vampires.”

  “Don't you have faerie vampires?” Hekate asked.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Well there you go,” Hekate shrugged. “Besides, they're not really vampires, just vampiric.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” Teharon asked. I think his healer magic was curious.

  “They drink blood,” Hekate said casually. “But they don't do all that other stuff.”

  “Like burst into flame in sunlight, change into bats, and sleep in the dirt of their homeland?” I offered.

  “Yeah, that,” she laughed. “And they turn into snakes instead of bats.”

  “What?” I looked back at her with a sharp jerk of my head.

  “I hate snakes,” Karni Mata was staring at the snakes in Tisiphone's hand. “They eat rats.”

  Oh right. I guess a rat goddess wouldn't like snakes so much then. I gave Karni a sympathetic look but she didn't notice. She was too busy staring at the snakes. Teharon slipped an arm around her though and that seemed to help. She turned her fully black eyes up to him.

  “We'll talk about this later,” Hades interrupted. “Now, please excuse us, Tisiphone,” he said. “We need to get going.”

  “Of course, Lord Hades,” she said and stepped out of the way. “I'll go and prepare for war.”

  “Just leave the snakes behind, okay?” I called out to her as we passed into Tartarus.

  Chapter Forty

  “Fear is the path to the dark side,” I chanted under my breath. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to-”

  “V, are you okay?” Torrent had maneuvered his way next to me, which meant Artemis was pretty close to me too. Trevor was behind us, talking with Kirill, Odin, and Azrael. They were doing that male bonding thing and I didn't want to interrupt them with my anxieties.

  “She's just channeling her inner Yoda,” Hekate said from my right. I looked up sharply at her, impressed that she recognized the quote. She grinned in acknowledgment. “Hey, who doesn't know Star Wars?”

  “You'd be surprised,” I grimaced and then looked back to Torrent to answer him. “I'm fine,” I gave a nervous laugh and glanced around, then quickly looked back at my feet. “I'm totally fine.”

  Tartarus was a type of Hell, in case I haven't mentioned that. Hell. Yep. A place of torment thought up by humans and boy could we think up some crazy stuff. Cerebus had chosen to turn back into a dog instead of putting pants on, so he was at the head of our little group, clearing a path for us through all the craziness. This was much appreciated of course, but still, as in the case with Luke's Hell, just seeing some of that stuff was enough to give me nightmares for a year.

  Do you really wanna know? Probably not but I'll tell you anyway. It was dark there but not dark enough. The flaming river of blood(no, I'm not kidding), also known as Phlegethon(that's the shortened name), saw to it that things were lit enough to view but only in a endless torment, scary, fiery hell kind of way. Everywhere you looked, there were people being tortured in unusual ways. Some of them got off lightly, like the women I saw carrying water from the river Styx. They had these big jars and they would go get some water and try to take it to this large basin they were trying to fill but the jars had tons of holes in them and the water all leaked out before they reached the basin. Yet they kept on doing it. Over and over. Not so bad really. Annoying as... well... as hell, but not horrible.

  The horrible tortures were the ones like the guy chained to a rock, getting munched on by gigantic birds. Vultures, I think. Or the guy strapped to a burning wheel that some dude was gleefully turning. Or-

  “Do you have any water?” A guy came up on my left, startling both me and Torrent.

  “Fuck off, Tantalus,” Artemis said and shoved the guy away.

  He fell back in the dirt and started crying. I automatically began to go over to him but Hekate grabbed my arm.

  “His punishment is eternal hunger and thirst,” Hekate said grimly. “He wouldn't be able to drink the water, even were you to hand him some. There's nothing you can do and he knows it.”

  “Great,” I sighed and trudged on. “Is this the special Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater?”

  “Nice one,” Hekate nodded and fist bumped me.

  “Thanks.”

  “But seriously,” she continued, “they've all done terrible things. They've been judged and found deserving of these punishments.”

  “Well,” I shook my head. “I can't say I haven't played judge and executioner before but killing is an end to torment, this goes on forever. I don't believe anyone deserves that.”

  “Too bad the rest of humanity disagrees with you,” she subtly reminded me that the gods had nothing to do with the tortures of Tartarus.

  “Yeah, I get it,” I huffed. “Doesn't mean I gotta like it and frankly, I don't think other humans would disagree with me if they saw this firsthand.”

  “Yes,” she smirked, her lip-ring sliding over her black lipstick. “Torture is so much easier to bear when you don't have to witness it.”

  “But I don't dispute the fact that some people deserve it,” I glanced at Kirill and Odin, thinking about how much I'd like to kill Demeter again. Even though I'm told I did a horrific job of it the first time.

  “Sometimes the best therapy involves cutlery,” her words were sassy but her expression was deadly serious.

  �
��Agreed,” I gave her an understanding look.

  “Yo, Kate!” A female voice called from our right.

  We turned to see a bunch of hot women come striding up. They were all dressed in goth gear like Hekate, dramatic makeup and piercings, but they looked like goths on the warpath. Their black pants and sleek tops were leather, though there were some nice lace accents. Their long hair, in various shades of red, was all pulled back into braids or ponytails, and they all wore weapons on their belts.

  “Hey, girls,” Hekate greeted them. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Are you kidding?” One of the women asked. “We wouldn't pass up a chance to mess with Zeus. That bastard has it coming.”

  “I thought you might say that,” Hekate said grimly. “After what Hera did to your children, I figured you'd cherish the chance for revenge, Libys.”

  “Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing her again,” the woman smiled and a pair of fangs flicked down from the roof of her mouth. I blinked.

  “Vervain,” Hekate turned to me, “these are the Lamiai. This is Libys and-”

  “You shall not pass!” Hundreds of voices seemed to shout all at the same time.

  We all turned to see Hades standing before an army of men. Behind them rose a bronze gate, connected to the bronze wall I was told encircled Tartarus. I angled around the others and made my way to the front of the line. Then I stopped short.

  It wasn't an army. Nope, there were three guys there. Three. Except each one of them had like fifty heads. They had a whole lot of arms too. Their chests were angled out, wide at the top to support all of the heads attached to them, and then tapered down to a waist and two huge legs. I guess they had to be huge to support all those damn heads. Arms sprouted from their massive chests everywhere. They looked like grotesque sea urchins with legs.

  I just stood and gawked. How do you sleep with that many arms? Either way you laid, you'd be crushing appendages. They must wake up every morning with pins and needles in their arms. Or maybe they rolled about in their gigantic beds. Maybe they had round beds so they could just keep rolling. Around and around all night long so their arms wouldn't go numb. Yep, that's the kind of crazy things I think of when faced with something I can't comprehend.

  “Does that guy have an arm coming out of his ass?” Aidan's voice carried over to me again.

  It was quickly followed by Darius' growl, “Shut up, Aidan.”

  “Are they creating some kind of illusion?” I finally asked Hades.

  “No, they are as they appear to be,” he said before facing them again. “Step aside now, Hecatonchires.”

  “You shall not pass!” All of the heads said again.

  “They're not too bright, huh?” I asked Hekate, who'd come up beside me again, Lamiai in tow. “You'd think with all those brains, they'd be witty.”

  “Who said they had brains in all those heads?” Hekate smirked. “I think they got the normal number allotted to every man and just had to make do.”

  “Huh,” I made a face. “That would explain it. One brain to work all the heads.”

  “So a normal man then,” Libys said and we all snickered.

  “Cottus! Briareus! Gyges!” Hades shouted, losing his temper a bit. “The Lord of the Underworld demands that you step aside!”

  “Let 'em pass, boys,” a giant woman wedged her way between the boys. “It's not like they can open the gate anyway.”

  “Says who?” Hekate called out as the many-headed men stepped back.

  “Katie?” The woman smiled and pushed aside a ponderous multi-header. “Move it, Briareus. Damn you're a slow one. Is that you, Hekate?” Then Briareus finally moved out of her way and I got to see the whole of the woman.

  I gasped. On top, she was stunning. Lustrous brown hair fell to her hips in waves, huge blue eyes were rimmed in thick lashes, full lips were tinted pink, and she had curves to die for. The curves changed at her waist though. Her lower half looked like mine... when I was in dragon form. It was even gold scaled. Her tail wasn't a dragon's though, it was a scorpion's. With a big ol' stinger at the end. She also had a pair of leathery, black wings rising up from her back.

  “Campy!” All of the Lamiai shouted.

  “Lamies!” the dragon/scorpion/woman shouted back.

  “What's up, Cam?” Hekate went forward and Cam/Campy bent over so she could slap palms with the goddess.

  “Nothing much, just hanging with the boys,” Cam grinned. “You know how it is. I like 'em big and dumb.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Hekate chuckled. “Oh, hey. I want you to meet someone,” Hekate turned and gestured me forward. I went a little reluctantly. “This is Vervain, the Godhunter.”

  “Hey, Vervain,” Cam extended a hand and I lost all of my nervousness. If I could love the Hidden Ones, I could be friendly with this woman. Even if she had fingernails like sickles. “I'm Campe but you can call me, Cam.”

  “Hey,” I shook her hand. “Thanks, you can call me V if you want. Um, don't take this the wrong way but are you a dragon?”

  Campe, Hekate, and the Lamiai all broke out in laughter before Campe finally answered me.

  “I'm not, actually,” she said as she returned to her full height(several feet above my head). “I was an Atlantean. Humans gave me this body. I've heard you're a dragon though. Is that true?”

  “I can be,” I nodded. “I have gold scales too.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widened. “I'd love to see that.”

  “Um,” I glanced at Hekate.

  “We're kinda in a rush, girl,” Hekate covered for me. “We gotta go ask the Titans if they wanna fight Zeus with us.”

  “Zeus?” Campe came to attention. “You guys are fighting Zeus?”

  “Let me guess,” I laughed. “You wanna come?”

  “I'd love to,” she sighed, “but I can't. Gate duty,” she jerked her thumb back at the bronze gate. “Thanks for the invite though.”

  “I relieve you of your duty for the extent of the battle,” Hades stepped over to us. “We'd be happy to have you with us.”

  “Really?” A wide grin spread over her face. “Sweeeet!” She did a fist pump into the air. “I'm gonna go find my armor. I'll meet you back here in like half an hour?”

  “Sounds good,” Hades nodded with a little smile.

  “Hey,” one of the other Lamiai called to Campe. “We'll go and hang with you while they go into Titan territory.”

  “Excellent,” Campe said. “We can have a quick margarita before we go kick that man's thunderous butt.”

  “Yay!” The Lamiai cheered.

  “Alright, you guys have fun,” Hekate called as Campe and the Lamiai turned to leave. That's when I noticed Campe's only piece of clothing. It was an AC/DC T-shirt: Highway to Hell. Oh yeah, she'd fit right in with the God Squad.

  “Alright, folks,” Hekate cracked her knuckles. “Let's go talk to the Titans.”

  Hekate walked up to the bronze gate and laid her hands against it. There wasn't a big flash of light or a thunderclap. There was no spectacle to her magic at all. The gate simply swung open and suddenly we could see what was beyond it.

  Previously, there had only been inky darkness beyond the bronze fretwork of the gate but once Hekate pushed the doors open, it lightened to reveal a land of grassy hills and high mountains in the distance. On every hilltop was a palace. Some shone bright white in the afternoon sunlight and some were a darker gray but all were impressive.

  We followed Hekate down a paved road(yes, paved, as in asphalt) and then turned up the first lane we came to. I looked at Persephone askance but she just shrugged. This was new to her as well.

  A gray stone palace came into view shortly, squatting up on its hill like a fat king. A quick glance showed me that it appeared to have the highest hill. That probably meant something. Hekate walked to the rather large front door and knocked. There was a muffled sound of movement and then the door swung open.

  “What the hell?” A large man glared down at us.

  “Yep,
that's where we came from,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Vervain,” I grinned. “The Godhunter.”

  “Godhunter, huh?” He looked me over. “I thought you'd be taller.”

  “You know what?” I looked over his large but clearly not gigantic form(he was only a little bigger than Odin). “I'd never thought I'd get the chance to say this to anyone but I'd thought you'd be taller too.”

  The man's lips twitched.

  “Hey, Cronus,” Hekate elbowed me in the side. “I've brought Hades and some of his friends over to talk to the Titans. You think you guys could spare us a minute? It has to do with kicking Zeus' ass.”

  “Kicking...” the man's wide face lit up with a grin. “Come on in, everyone. Welcome to my home.”

  And that's all it took to get inside the home of a Titan.

  Chapter Forty-One

  It took the Titans all of two minutes to decide that they were in on the attacking Zeus deal. I swear, the more Greeks I met, the more I realized what kind of an asshole Zeus was. Cronus had made a few calls and his living room was filled near to bursting within fifteen minutes. Then Hades told them all about the recent prophecy and the whole ambrosia thing. That was it. Titans started leaving to go armor up.

  “Artie, darling,” a Titan woman approached Artemis.

  “Grandma,” Artemis hugged the woman and got engulfed. The rest of her words were muffled.

  “What was that, dear?” The woman pulled back and Artemis took a breath.

  “I said, I'm so happy to see you. It's been forever. Um,” she glanced at Torrent and seemed to make a decision. She waved him over and he glanced at me. I made a shooing motion and he jerked into action, rushing over to Artemis. “This is my boyfriend, Torrent. Torrent, this is my grandmother, Phoebe.”

  The rest of us looked at each other with wide eyes. She called him boyfriend and introduced him to her family. This was getting serious.

  “Nice to meet you, ma'am,” Torrent held out a hand and the woman laughed and pushed it aside.