“You used to be so much fun.”
“Ignore her.” Jake looked at me. “She’ll get used to you in time.”
That’s if I survive, I thought bitterly. “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “How can you torture souls when they can’t feel pain?”
“I never said they couldn’t feel pain,” Jake explained. “Only the demons are immune. The souls, on the other hand, feel everything acutely. The beauty of Hades is that you keep regenerating only to go through it all again.”
“The torture cycle’s set on repeat,” Asia said with a crazed look. “We can hack ’em up and by sundown they’ll be whole again. The poor suckers look so relieved to know they’re close to the end. You should see their faces when they wake up without a scratch and it starts all over again.”
My face must have reflected the light-headedness I suddenly felt. I sank down into a chair, resting heavily on my elbow. Jake brushed Asia’s wandering hands from his chest and came over to me. He lifted my chin with an icy finger.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said in a voice surprisingly devoid of sarcasm.
“I don’t feel well,” I said flatly.
“Poor baby’s sick,” Asia crooned.
“What can I do?” Jake asked.
My gaze wandered inadvertently to Asia. I knew it wasn’t wise to make an enemy out of her, but her very presence was making me feel unwell. Jake looked at her flippantly over his shoulder. “Get out,” he commanded without a second’s hesitation.
“What?” She sounded genuinely surprised and even unsure of who he was addressing for a moment.
“NOW!”
Asia had clearly never been in a position in which she wasn’t Jake’s favorite and she didn’t like it. She threw me one final venomous look before storming off. I breathed easier with her gone. The malice she projected was debilitating, as if she were feeding off my very life source.
“Tucker, pour us a drink,” Jake ordered. Tucker sprang to life, moving to the dresser to pour whiskey from a crystal decanter into a tumbler. He handed it to Jake with an expression that suggested a mixture of fear and loathing. Jake held out the glass to me.
“Drink this.”
I took some tentative sips of the warm, glowing liquid and felt surprisingly better. It burned inside me, but somehow the burn had a numbing effect.
“You need to keep your strength up,” Jake said, putting an arm casually around me. Instantaneously I shook myself free. “You don’t always have to be so defensive.” He swung himself playfully around a bedpost and slid in beside me so deftly I barely had time to react. Although filled with a strange darkness, Jake’s face was beautiful in the fading light. His lips parted in a slow smile and I could hear him breathing fast. His black eyes traveled unhurriedly over my face. He always had a way of making me feel exposed and vulnerable.
“You must make an effort to be happy,” he murmured, trailing a finger along the inside of my arm.
“How can I try when I’m more miserable than I’ve ever been?” I said. There was little point in trying to mask my feelings.
“I understand you’re pining for lost love,” Jake said, in a voice that sounded almost sincere. “But that human can’t make you happy because he can never truly understand what you are.”
I edged away from him, but his grip on my arm tightened and he began tracing the network of veins beneath the translucent skin. I flinched, remembering how his touch had been accompanied by an uncomfortable burning sensation in the past. It felt different this time, almost soothing. I figured I was in Jake’s domain now and he could manipulate things any way he chose.
When Jake left, I couldn’t settle and Tucker loitering by the closed door only made me more uncomfortable. Instead of returning to the fire, he withdrew an electronic device from his pocket and began compulsively playing games to wile away the time.
“You can sit down,” I suggested, remembering his lame leg, which must have been bothering him because he kept readjusting his position, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
He looked up for a moment, startled by my expression of kindness.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I added with a smile.
Tucker hesitated a moment, then relaxed enough then to slide down and sit with his back against the door.
“You oughta try ’n’ git some sleep,” he suggested. It was the first time I’d heard him speak or look at me directly. His voice wasn’t what I expected. It was soft and mellow with a lilting Southern twang. The tone, however, was surprisingly worldweary for someone his age. “If you’re worried about Asia, she won’t bother you while I’m around.” He seemed proud of his ability to keep watch. “She’s a piece of work, but I ain’t easily fooled, despite what y’all might think.”
“I’m not worried,” I reassured him. “I trust you, Tucker.”
“You can call me Tuck,” he said.
“Okay.”
Tuck hesitated, and then looked at me with interest. “What makes you so sad all the time?”
“Am I that obvious?” I gave a small smile.
Tuck shrugged. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m just thinking about the people I love …,” I said, “and whether I’ll ever see them again.”
A pained expression crossed his face as though my words had triggered troubling memories of his own to resurface.
“You can see them again if you want to,” he said. It was barely a murmur. Had I heard him right? All my hopes were suddenly roused, but I tried to keep my voice from trembling.
“Excuse me?” I asked slowly.
“You heard me,” Tuck mumbled.
“Are you saying you know a way out of here?”
“I didn’t say that,” he snorted. “I said you could see them again.”
This time he sounded mildly annoyed at having to explain what should have been patently obvious. It struck me suddenly that this lumbering boy with his crooked haircut might know more than he was letting on. Could his allegiance to Jake be merely pretense? Was it possible that here was one person in all of Hades with a vestige of conscience left? Was Tuck trying to tell me he was prepared to help? There was only one way to find out.
“Tell me what you mean, Tuck,” I asked, my heart leaping with expectation.
“There’s a way,” he said simply.
“Can you tell me?”
“I can’t tell you,” he answered. “But I can show you.” He brought a broad finger up to his lip in warning. “But we have to be careful. If we’re caught …,” he trailed off.
“I’ll do whatever I need to do,” I said determinedly.
“There are five rivers in Hades. One is for forgetting your past life, but there’s another that let’s you return to it. Well, at least temporarily,” Tuck said. “Drink from it and it will give you the ability to visit your loved ones whenever you like.”
“Visit them how?”
“You’ll be able to project,” Tucker said. It seemed the more he spoke, the less I understood what he meant. I looked at him blankly, my previous expectation dwindling to disappointment. It was entirely possible that Tucker wasn’t even in his right mind. The fact that I was attaching so much hope to what he had to say was a testament to my desperation.
Tuck read the mistrust in my face and tried to be clearer.
“There’s things here you won’t have read about in books. Drinking from the Lake of Dreams creates a trancelike state that allows your spirit to detach from your physical body. It takes skill, but someone like you should pick it up easy. Once you learn how to do it, you can go anywhere you like.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
Tucker looked dispirited at my lack of trust. “Why would I lie? Jake’ll have me thrown into the pit if he finds out.”
“Why help me then? Why risk your safety?”
“Let’s just say I’m fixin’ to settle a score,” he said. “Plus, you look like you could really use a home visit.” His lame attempt at humor made me smi
le.
“Have you managed to? Go home, I mean?”
A forlorn look came into his eyes. “By the time I worked out how there wasn’t much point, everyone I ever knew had gone. But you could check on the people you care about ’cuz they’re still alive.”
The lake’s potential filled me with hope.
“Take me there now,” I begged.
“Not so fast,” he cautioned. “It can be dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
“Take too much and you might not wake up.”
“And how is that bad?” The words slipped out before I had a chance to think about them.
“It ain’t if y’don’t mind being in a coma for the rest of your life, watching your family day in and day out like they’re characters on a movie screen but never bein’ able to talk to them or reach them. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head although admittedly it sounded a darn sight better than what I had now.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re in charge of the dosage. But you’ve gotta take me there right now!”
10
Devil’s Feast
WE were almost at the door when it opened with a muted clack and Jake unexpectedly let himself into the room. Tuck and I both started and tried to cover our confusion by moving in entirely opposite directions. Jake arched an eyebrow and looked at us quizzically. He was dressed in a charcoal dinner jacket and a red silk cravat.
“Good to see you’re still up, darling,” he said in that irritating formal manner of his, as if he were something out of a 1950s movie. “I hope you’re hungry. I’ve come to take you to dinner. It’s just what we need to lighten the mood around here.”
“I’m actually pretty tired,” I hedged. “I was planning on going to bed.”
“Really? Because you look wide awake to me,” he said, scrutinizing my face closely. “More than awake — I’d say you look excited about something. Your cheeks are all flushed.”
“That’s because it’s always so overheated in here,” I said. “Seriously, Jake, I was hoping to have an early night ….” I tried to speak in what I hoped was an assertive tone, but Jake cut me off by waving his hand irritably.
“Enough excuses. I’m not taking no for an answer, so hurry up and get ready.” It struck me that he could be capable of such erratic mood swings. One moment he could be dark and threatening and the next as excited as a schoolboy. Suddenly his tone became more upbeat and he smiled. “Besides, I want to show you off!”
I threw Tucker an imploring look, but his face had returned to its previous expressionless mask. There was nothing he could say or do that wouldn’t get us both into hot water.
“I just want to be left alone,” I said to Jake.
“Bethany, you must understand that there are certain duties attached to your new position. There are important people who are anxiously waiting to meet you. So … I’ll be back in twenty minutes and you’ll be ready.” It was not a request. He was almost out the door when he paused as if a new idea had just occurred to him. “By the way,” he said over his shoulder. “Wear pink tonight. They’ll get a kick out of that.”
Dinner was held in a lavish underground dining room lit by a screen of fire at one end. In place of wall hangings the room had an array of weaponry, including Roman shields, spiked maces, and long blunt stakes — the kind Vlad the Impaler might’ve had in his fourteenth-century Romanian castle.
As Jake and I were the first to arrive, we stood in the flagged foyer as waiters served up finger food on silver platters and French champagne from tall flutes. Peals of frivolous laughter heralded the arrival of the other guests. Looking around I saw they were mostly made up of elite members of Jake’s court. Everyone who approached Jake to pay his or her respects eyed me with unconcealed fascination. Most were dressed elaborately in leather and fur. In my powder pink dress with its scalloped neckline and full knee-length skirt, I felt distinctly out of place. I was relieved to find that I couldn’t see Asia anywhere. I wondered whether her exclusion was intentional. I was sure it would only fuel her resentment toward me.
After a brief lapse of time a gong signaled the commencement of dinner and we were all ushered to our places at the long oak table in the dining room. As host, Jake was seated at the center. Grim-faced, I slunk into my designated seat beside him. Sitting directly in front of us were Diego, Nash, and Yates, whom I’d first encountered in the pit. With them were three strikingly dressed women. In fact, all the assembled guests were beautiful, both male and female alike, but in a strange and frightening way. Their features were perfectly crafted as if from glass and yet they looked so different from Ivy and Gabriel. I felt a pang thinking of my brother and sister, immediately followed by the sting of tears. I bit down hard on my lower lip to hold them back. I might be naïve, but I knew how unwise it would be to show vulnerability in front of company like this.
I studied the faces around me. They were rapacious, conceited, and sharp eyed. Their senses seemed accentuated, as if they could hone in on scents and sounds like wild animals programmed to hunt. I knew they could make themselves appear as seductive and tempting as ever when luring human prey. Although their beauty was striking, there were times when I caught fleeting glimpses as subtle as a passing shadow of their real features that lay beneath the masks of perfection. What I saw made me recoil. I could not suppress my shock when I realized that they merely assumed the guise of humans for outward appearances.
In their true form the demons were anything but perfect. Their actual faces were beyond horrifying. I found myself staring at a statuesque female with coils of chocolate brown hair. Her skin was milky pale; her almond eyes an electric blue. Her delicately hooked nose and round shoulders made her look like a Grecian goddess. But beneath the glamorous exterior she was an image of putrefaction. Her skull was misshapen, with a bulging forehead and a chin as pointed as a dagger. Her skin was mottled and bruised, as if someone had beaten her, and her face was covered in weeping sores and welts. Her nose was pushed up into her head so that it resembled a snout. She was bald apart from patches of thin, matted hair that hung around her face. Her real eyes were cloudy and red rimmed and her mouth was little more than a slot through which you could glimpse stumps of teeth and rotting gums when she threw back her head and laughed. I saw similar flashes all around the table and felt my stomach begin to churn.
“Try not to stare,” Jake admonished in my ear. “Just relax and don’t focus on it.” I complied and found that once I took his advice, the flashes stopped and faces of the party returned to their cruel but beautiful masks. My lack of enthusiasm eventually drew their attention and was misconstrued as rudeness.
“What’s the matter, Princess?” Diego asked from across the table. “Our hospitality not up to your standards?” If the group had been holding back until then, Diego’s comment served as a catalyst, encouraging others to voice their thoughts.
“My, my, an angel in Hell,” chuckled a redhead I’d heard Jake address as Eloise. “Who would have thought we’d see the day?”
“Is she staying long?” complained a man with a fastidiously groomed beard. “She reeks of virtue and it’s giving me a headache.”
“What did you expect, Randall?” someone snorted. “The righteous ones are always exhausting to have around.”
“Is she a virgin?” the redhead asked. “I haven’t seen one of those down here in a while. Can we have some fun with her, Jake?”
“Oh, yes, let’s share her!”
“Or sacrifice her. I hear virgin blood can do wonders for the complexion.”
“Does she still have her wings?”
“Of course she does, you moron, she won’t lose those for a while.”
I sat up straighter, alarmed by the implication that I might soon be wingless, but Jake touched my elbow reassuringly and flashed me a look that said he’d explain everything later.
“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Majesty,” pandered another guest.
The voices blurred together
in an orchestra of babble. They were like a group of children competing to see who could draw the most attention. Jake tolerated their antics for a while before slamming his fist down on the table so hard the crockery rattled.
“Enough!” he shouted above the rising chatter. “Bethany is not available for rent nor did I bring her here to face an inquisition. Kindly remember that she is my guest.” Some of the demons looked abashed about having unintentionally displeased their host.
“Exactly,” concurred Nash in a fawning manner. He raised his glass. “Allow me to be the first to propose a toast.”
For the first time my attention was drawn to the table, laden with all manner of delicacies. All the food on offer was rich and extravagantly prepared. Someone had gone to extreme lengths to set the table so that the linen napkins, the silverware, and the crystal were all accurately aligned. There was roasted pheasant, pâtés and terrines, wheels of soft cheeses on timber boards, and platters of exotic fruits. The dusty bottles of wine seemed to outnumber the people. The demons evidently didn’t believe in self-denial and the deadly sin of gluttony was probably a desirable trait here.
I made no effort to touch my glass although they were watching me expectantly. Under the table Jake prompted me by tapping my foot lightly with his. His face seemed to say, Don’t embarrass me now. But I had little interest in helping him save face in front of his entourage.
“To Jake and his charming new acquisition,” Nash continued, giving up on waiting for me to participate.
“And to our eternal source of guidance and inspiration,” added Diego, giving me a withering look. “Lucifer, god of the Underworld.”
I don’t know why I chose that moment to speak. I wasn’t feeling particularly brave so perhaps it was sheer indignation that allowed me to find my voice.
“I wouldn’t call him a god, exactly,” I said flippantly.
There was an appalled silence during which Jake looked at me, astounded by my stupidity. His ability to protect me in Hades must have limits and I’d very possibly just crossed the line. Then Yeats broke the tension by clapping his hands and erupting into laughter. The others followed, equally eager to gloss over my faux pas rather than linger on it and spoil the evening. Yeats looked at me with amusement in his eyes, but the threat in his voice was unmistakable.
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