He looked at me and rolled to brush a long strand of hair out of my face. I’d been trying to work up the energy to do it myself. “I take you to all the best places,” he said.
I laughed and coughed.
“When you said underworld, I thought you were talking about the movie,” I quipped when I could talk again.
“Fiction, bah,” he answered. “I prefer the source material.”
Then we heard it…them. Voices. Bouncing around like pin balls.
“—don’t want to be here when she does,” a voice was saying.
Hades.
I strained to figure out directionality.
“That way,” Nick said, sitting up and pointing. Break time was over.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Eagle scout,” he announced proudly. “I’m sure.”
My muscles shook and threatened failure, but I managed to sit slowly and creak to my feet. I kicked off the fins and grabbed for the small spear gun at my belt.
“Let’s go.”
Nick didn’t like the idea of me leading, but he’d seen the gorgon glare in action, and he knew what it could do.
I crept forward, pointing the dive light at the cave floor, afraid to send it out ahead of us and alert anyone to our presence.
But I didn’t think they were too worried. Hades wasn’t just making plans to bug out and fall back to his well-defended stronghold, he was giving orders to collapse the tunnels behind them.
The same tunnels we were in.
Nick and I shared a glance, and I shut off the light. We were close enough to the source of the voices that it could give us away.
Blind, we had only our hearing. We moved ahead. I couldn’t see Nick, and he was quiet enough, but not so quiet, as close as we were, that I couldn’t hear him moving beside me. The air seemed to shift ahead of us, take a dogleg, and I reached out to confirm the impression with my hands. Sure enough.
“Left,” I whispered to Nick. It was eerie, but I could almost feel his nod.
Left it was, and only a few steps before I heard a low rumbling growl. Then another. And a third.
Cerberus, back where he belonged? Hellhounds? We should have come armed with Scooby Snacks, not spears. My warning system flared up. Actually had been trying to get my attention since we’d gone dark. But at first it had been polite, like a tapping on my shoulder. Now it was a cattle prod to the heart, sending volts of electricity through me, trying to goose me into flight. Away it seemed to say. Ahead there be dragons. Or at least their canine equivalents.
I ignored it.
“You can’t!” Persephone pleaded ahead of us, off to the left. “Thanatos, you can’t do it! Listen to me, I’m your mother.”
“Yes, but he’s my Lord.”
There was the sound of a slap, of flesh hitting flesh hard enough to leave a mark, and a woman cried out.
“Silence,” Hades bellowed. “You’ve done enough on your own. Now you encourage mutiny?”
I’d heard all I needed to hear. Hades and Persephone were not alone. At the very least, Thanatos was with them. And canine companions. We were beyond outnumbered, but we’d known that was likely going in.
The growls rose in volume, became ominous, and caught Hades’s attention. “You hear something boys?” he asked. “Go—hunt!” Over the sudden sharp baying of the hounds we heard him order Thanatos, “Set the charges.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Bravery is being too stupid to know fear. Courage is standing firm in the very face of it.”
—Christos Karacis
The precog kick to my chest urged me to run, but I stood my ground, aiming my spear gun for the point where I thought the dogs would appear. I let my hearing guide my aim on my first shot and released the bolt. A yelp upon impact nearly deafened me, bouncing around the caves and battering my ears from all sides. Beside me, Nick yelled, “Close your eyes!”
It was immediately followed by a sizzle as he lit up a flare, which…flared into life, lighting up the room beyond my lids, which I’d gotten shut just in time. The dogs howled in distress and seemed to stop their rush. If sound could be trusted, one even slid into another, sending them sprawling across the floor. But I couldn’t keep my eyes shut for long. I was going to have to let them adjust before the dogs’ did or I’d be a sitting duck.
I blinked away the tears that formed at the pain of the sudden brightness after all the dark and looked toward the hounds. Away from the flare. One was already shaking its head, trying to clear its vision to focus in on us. The other two were getting to their feet, lips pulled back from their teeth to show wicked-sharp canines bared against us.
I reached for another bolt, but didn’t have time to load it before the closest hound leapt for me.
“Freeze!” I ordered, terrified, staring straight into its hellfire eyes, but it was already in mid air, and while its snarl did seem to freeze on its face, its momentum carried it on. I dove to the side to escape the landing but it struck me a glancing blow that sent me crashing to the ground and the spear gun clattering out of my hands. The beast landed hard, but I could hear the other two going wild to take advantage of its felled prey…me.
Nick gave a huge battle cry, and I spun on the ground, already getting my feet under me. Trying to find the lost gun would cost me time I didn’t have. I reached for my fairly impressive dive knife. Nick was brandishing the flare, trying to drive the dogs back, but they snapped at it, barely intimidated. One caught it in his jaws, and shook it like an animal, trying to break its spine. The light went out, and I heard the broken flare hit the floor off to the right.
I feared the darkness would give all the advantage to the hellhounds. My mental alarm bells were ringing, and for a millisecond, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, as a whistle sounded back from where the hounds had come, and I thought I heard them drop, one woofing in protest. And then light flared again, and standing there in the entrance deeper into the cave, with the dogs heeling at his feet like hunting hounds at rest, was a tall young man with ice in his eyes and hellfire like a small sun cupped in his hands. Thanatos, I thought at first, without his trademark cape and cowl, but then I realized that it wasn’t quite right. No, Thanatos must have gone to set the charges. At a guess we were facing his brother Hypnos, rumored to be his near spitting image. His hair stuck straight up like a flame that started dark at the face and was golden-red tipped at the ends. He looked like I’d imagined Hades before meeting him—all punked out in lots of leather and chain with a…was that a safety pin?…sticking through his nose. I didn’t want to get close enough for a good look. I could practically hear Jesus in my head, though—“Oh honey, nothing you can buy at a pharmacy counter should ever count as jewelry.” The thought made me smile inappropriately in a way that I hoped conveyed confidence rather than the fine edge of ensuing hysteria. Because whoever we faced was certainly spawn of Hades/Pluto/Dis…the very god who put the “dis” in “discord” and “dissociative disorder.”
Hypnos or whoever didn’t wait to exchange witty repartee, but immediately launched that hellfire at us. Nick and I dodged in opposite directions, and the cave exploded into sparks between us. I smelled something burning, and realized it was my hair, singed at the ends. I rolled onto my shoulders and kipped back up to my feet as another hellfire orb was growing between his hands. I knew why he’d called the dogs to heel. He wanted the pleasure of killing us himself.
I weighed my chances of getting close enough to use the knife in my hand versus hitting him with the actual blade should I hurl it ninja-style, and realized neither had great odds of success.
Meanwhile, while we fought, I assumed Hades was dragging Persephone farther and farther away from us. We had to finish this. Rephrase: we had to win this, and fast.
“Nick,” I yelled, “whatever you do, watch him. Don’t worry about me. Look for your moment.”
Hypnos laughed, as though our attempts to survive were just adorable, and launched the second hellfire grenade straight f
or me. It was what I’d counted on. Instead of dodging this time, I got my body behind it, just like I’d been taught playing ball with my circus friends. I caught it at chest level, dropping my knife as I did and crying out at pain so intense I nearly blacked out on the spot. I launched it back before my flesh could burn down to the bone.
He was so stunned, he threw his hands up to block his face, and Nick saw his moment, firing his own spear gun straight for Hypnos’s center of gravity. One of the hellhounds snapped at the bolt as it flew, snatching it out of the air and throwing it to the ground. I hadn’t counted on that. And my fingers were too raw, the flesh at the ends actually burned away, for me to dash for any weapon of my own to help him.
Hypnos laughed again and whistled to release the hounds. Apparently, murder was all good fun until the victims started fighting back. Three beasts flew at us—one coming for me and the other two going for Nick. Panicked, I whirled out of the way of the one coming at me, but he was agile, turning on a dime and dripping menace as he gathered himself for another run.
“Freeze!” I ordered him, and he did, but Hypnos was suddenly right beside me, pinning my arms to my sides with a bear hug, his breath hot and poisonous in my ear.
I thrashed, trying to go to Nick, who was fighting off two dogs at once. He’d managed to get a bolt into one, but that had only made it cautious, waiting for its moment as another attacked. There was blood at the gut of Nick’s wetsuit, and I suspected we wouldn’t be getting our deposit back. Ah, our brains and their defense mechanisms. As if that was the problem with a bloody Nick facing down two hellhounds.
“Do you give?” Hypnos asked Nick, whose eyes flashed to me, giving the wounded dog the distraction he was looking for to go for Nick himself.
“No!” I cried, struggling to get to him.
I smashed down on Hypnos’s instep, hard, and threw my head back into his face, catching his nose just right—I could tell by the crunch of caving bone. He let go, and a growl rose behind me—the hellhound I’d frozen coming free of the compulsion. Quickly, I grabbed Hypnos and whirled him in front of me like a shield just as the dog launched himself. I bolted out of the way as Hypnos howled and was knocked to the ground. His head cracked on the cave floor, but I was too focused on Nick to make sure he was okay.
I tried to grab the nearest hound, but the pain of it dropped me to my knees. I’d forgotten my hands were useless, but the hound rounded on me, giving Nick at least that much reprieve. I was still gasping in pain, fighting back the wave of nausea and unconsciousness that wanted to swamp me. I didn’t get the chance to defend myself before I was suddenly pinned with razor claws digging into my shoulders. I was less than a breath away from the death strike.
“Freeze!” I cried desperately, hoping it would work even though I couldn’t see into his eyes, even though it hadn’t done me much good so far. Nothing happened. No teeth ripped into me or claws shredded my stomach. The next thing I knew, the weight was knocked aside and Nick’s voice came out of the darkness. “Tori, are you all right?”
I whimpered. It wasn’t what I’d meant to come out, but Nick had caught at my hands to help me up, and it was suddenly the only sound I could make.
“Oh, sorry!” He pulled back. “I saw you catch that hellfire…”
“Is everyone down?” I asked. The pain was starting to recede, bless the ambrosia that was already healing me up.
“For now.”
“We’ve got to get after Persephone.”
My vision was clearing as the healing progressed, and I rolled onto my side to get to my feet still without using my hands. It wasn’t pretty, but I succeeded.
I wobbled as I stood there looking at the four downed hellhounds and one god of oblivion. There was blood spreading out around his head, but he was breathing, and if I was tough to kill…well, I was nothing compared to a god. He’d be coming after us. No doubt. I summoned up my inner strength, consolidated it into my core, and told Armani to plug his ears and start after Hades. It was only then I unleashed the power, ordering Hypnos with every fiber of my being to stay frozen.
I felt the power wash out of me and sweep the room, almost like a flash flood. My legs wanted to give out as weakness rushed in to fill the void left behind, but I ignored it and went off in search of another god of the underworld and his kidnapped bride, turning my back on Hell’s hand-minion.
They hadn’t gotten far with Persephone thrown over Hades’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. They didn’t hear us as we approached, not with their argument and Persephone’s repeated pleas that he put her down. For a second, I entertained the wish that I was the kind of girl who could shoot a man in the back. It would make things so much simpler. But I wasn’t and never would be.
“Hades!” I called. Beside me, Nick leveled his spear gun so that we were both aimed at Hades. “Let her go.”
He turned, slowly, shock on his face that we’d gotten so far. But he covered it quickly. “You dare?” he asked, though I thought the answer was pretty obvious. “She is mine.”
“Here’s the thing; I think the lady feels differently. Let. Her. Go.”
He glared and let Persephone slide to the floor, holding her like a shield in front of him. “Never,” he answered.
Crap. I looked at Nick, who shook his head that he didn’t have a shot.
Persephone flew into action, kicking back at Hades’s knee, and whirling as he began to buckle to thrust three fingers into the soft spot at the base of his neck where there were no bones to get in the way.
Hades fell back, making choking noises and clutching at his throat. Persephone threw herself forward toward us, out of his reach, and Nick shot Hades in his center of mass—gut, not chest— for good measure. He went down in an explosion of blood spatter and gore.
I shot a shocked glance at Nick and caught Persephone in my arms as she ran toward me sobbing.
“What?” Nick asked. “He’s a god; he’ll heal, right?”
“Right. Let’s get out of here before that happens.”
“Or the charges go off,” Persephone said, voice breaking. “Thanatos is going to blow the place to hell.” She wasn’t in any condition to appreciate the irony.
Would Thanatos set the place to blow with his lord and father still in the tunnels, never mind that a god would heal? Would he even realize Hades and Persephone hadn’t gotten out? That thought right on the heels of “we’ve just shot the god of the underworld…we have to live forever or we’re totally screwed” sent my panic level straight to apocalypse (on a scale from zero to oh-my-gods).
We ran. Persephone continued to cling to my arm, but I had to shake her off to really throw on the speed. Hypnos was coming to groggily as we hit the cave, and I veered to deliver a hard kick to his head. He oomphed and went down. One of the hellhounds snarled, but it couldn’t bring itself to give chase just yet. That wasn’t going to last.
I started pulling an extra wetsuit out of my pack, but Persephone shook her head and tossed it to the side as I handed it to her.
“No time. I’ll be fine.”
We reached the ledge where Nick and I had pulled ourselves out of the water, where we’d left our fins, but Persephone’s fear was feeding mine until it raged like a forest fire. I pushed my mask down over my eyes and dove, trusting that the others would be right behind me, and struck out hard from the surface.
I could just see the faint change in the light up ahead that indicated the mouth of the cave when my precognition exploded…a hair’s breath before the tunnel itself did the same. Superheated water blasted my back, pushing all the air out of me and sending me spinning through the water. With no more oxygen for buoyancy, I started to sink. Frantically, I kicked and struck at the water, trying to control my fall, aiming toward what I thought was the surface, but one of my feet was caught. I pushed off, thinking I’d hit bottom and my foot had gotten sucked between two rocks or into the muck, but whatever had me held fast. In the churning water, I couldn’t get a decent look, but something seemed to be
moving down there…and then the thing that held me started to crawl up my legs, hand over hand. My heart was pounding too quickly, and my oxygen level dropped equally fast. Spots started to appear before my eyes, but I summoned up whatever reserves I had to thrash around. I was caught too tightly to kick, but I could squiggle and squirm, eel-like, and make myself as difficult to hold on to as possible. Only there was no give.
I twisted back on myself like a netted fish, looking for escape, but found only the most frightening creature I’d ever seen floating before my facemask. She was odder even than Glaucus, who’d at least looked like something out of film. But this woman had a lizard-like mouth—wide and beaklike, but with sharp pointed teeth—and delicate fins, it appeared, where her ears should be. Her eyes were cold and reptilian, oversized, as though she spent a lot of time in the dark depths. Her green matted hair flowed all the way to her torso, which divided into two serpent tails, not scaly like something out of a Cher mermaid movie, but sinuous, like moray eels with a fine fin running down the back of each. I didn’t know what she was. A water divinity certainly. My doom equally likely.
With her tails wrapping my legs, I gave up fighting for the surface and fumbled instead for the spear gun at my waist, but she swatted it easily away, and we began to sink into the depths. My lungs, muscles and mind were all screaming out imminent death as I tried to catch her gaze. It wasn’t hard. She clearly wanted to watch my death throes. I couldn’t order her to freeze, not in so many words, but I willed it with all of my being.
Nothing.
We continued to sink, and those spots that had haunted my descent were back, stealing away my vision. Not okay, I thought. So not okay.
Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) Page 21
