Elementals 4: The Portal to Kerberos

by Michelle Madow

  “This water’s amazing,” Chris said, finishing up a handful of it and diving in for another. “If we bottled it up and sold it on Earth, we could make millions.”

  “If only we didn’t have to seal the portal,” I joked, feeling much better now that I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out from thirst. I turned around, wondering why Danielle wasn’t joining us, surprised to see her walking slowly toward us with Erebus. “Aren’t you thirsty?” I asked her. “This water’s amazing.”

  She pressed her lips together and glanced at Erebus. When she turned back to me, she looked like she wanted to tell me something, but like she didn’t know how to start.

  Before I could open my mouth to ask her what was wrong, dizziness slammed into my head, my vision hazed over, and everything went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I woke up in the cave, staring straight into the glowing yellow eyes of the harpy. My hands rested on the back of a chair where Becca was seated, her wrists and ankles binding her down.

  “The choice is yours,” the harpy said, its eyes on me. “If you refuse to hand over the Book, the energy of six witches will make my friends in there very happy.” It pointed a talon at the muddy door—the portal to Kerberos—and cackled.

  I blinked a few times, centering myself. I remembered this happening—back in January, the week when we first got our powers.

  How did I get here? What was happening? The last thing I remembered, I was drinking water from a river in Kerberos.

  What had the water done to me? Had it sent me back in time?

  Danielle stepped forward and stuck her chin in the air. “What’s to stop you from throwing us in there even if Nicole gives you the Book?” she asked.

  I looked at her, trying to see if she noticed that anything was off. But she simply stared at the harpy, waiting for it to answer. The others did the same—including Kate. She stood to the back, near the cave wall, and I gasped at the sight of her. I didn’t think I would ever see her again. I hoped we would be able to break Medusa’s curse, but who knew how long that would take—if we were even able to succeed. But here she was, as if nothing had ever happened to her.

  Maybe that was the reason why I was here. To save Kate.

  “Just my word.” The harpy answered Danielle’s question and smiled to the best of its ability given that it had a beak instead of a mouth.

  “Because that’s so reliable.” Becca sneered.

  The harpy raised a talon and slashed it across Becca’s face, blood spritzing all around her. I gasped, my heart sinking into my stomach. Because that wasn’t supposed to happen. But Becca’s screams made it clear that it had happened, and she hunched over, her agonizing wails echoing through the cave.

  I ran around the chair, placing my hands under Becca’s chin and forcing her to look up at me. The moment I did, I wished I hadn’t. The harpy’s claw had slashed diagonally across my sister’s face, along one of her eyes, slicing her nose in half and deforming one side of her mouth. Her eyeball had popped, the gooey remains of it dripping down her cheek.

  My beautiful sister looked like a monster.

  “It’ll be okay,” I told her, barely able to find my voice. “I can fix this.”

  I reached forward to heal her, but before I could, the harpy, pushed me to the side. I crashed to the ground, my breath knocked out of me. Before I could process what was happening, the harpy picked up Becca’s chair and threw it across the room, sending it hurtling over the nearby cliff. My sister’s screams echoed through the air. I heard a crash, and she was silent.

  “No!” I screamed, running to the side of the cliff. I looked down, collapsing into sobs at the sight below. Becca’s head had crashed into a stalagmite. Her skull was crushed to a pulp, her remaining eye staring emptily up at the ceiling.

  The sight of her broken body chilled me to the bone. A minute ago she was fine. Now she was gone.

  I would never be able to see my sister or talk to her again.

  How was this happening? I remembered this day—this wasn’t how this was supposed to end. Becca was supposed to be fine. She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t be.

  But there she was, crushed to death at the bottom of a pit. And there was nothing I could do to save her.

  Something grabbed my arm—the harpy’s claw—and she forced me around to face her. “Don’t be too sad about your sister,” she snarled. “Because you’ll be seeing her soon.”

  She reached her other claw forward and dug it into my chest. I screamed—the pain so unbearable that I couldn’t think or move or breathe.

  She pulled her hand out of my chest, I saw my bloody heart dripping in her claw, and everything went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When I opened my eyes, I was back on the yacht in Greece, holding what was left of Chef’s arm after he’d been mauled by Scylla.

  He glanced down at what was left of his arm and scowled. “You’re supposed to be a healer,” he said, yanking the remaining stump back to his side. “What good are you if you can’t fix this?”

  “What’s happening to me?” My chest burned with pain, but when I looked down at it, it was fine—no hole where my heart should have been. “Why am I here?”

  “What’s happening to you?” Chef asked, his features twisted in rage. “Are you crazy, girl? You’re the one who was supposed to fix what happened to me!” He waved his stump in the air, glaring at me as if I’d ripped his arm off myself.

  Blake wrapped his arms around me, and I sunk into his embrace and closed my eyes, sobs wracking through my body. At least Blake was back here with me. That was one comfort in this huge mess.

  “She saved your life,” Blake said to Chef, his chest vibrating as he spoke. “If Nicole wasn’t here, you would have bled out and died.”

  “Stop talking, boy,” Chef said, and then Blake choked, a heart-dropping gurgling sound coming from his throat as he gasped for air.

  Warm liquid dripped down my cheek, and Blake’s body went limp around me, collapsing to the ground. His blood was everywhere—in my eyes, on my face, in my hair, on my hands. It poured out of his neck, from the gash that Chef had sliced through his throat.

  I reached for him to heal him, but Chef dropped his knife and pulled me back, his arm wrapped around me so tightly that he crushed my ribcage.

  “No!” I screamed, thrashing against Chef’s hold. “Let me go! You have to let me heal him!” I kicked and screamed, but he was stronger than me. I was trapped watching helplessly as the life drained out of Blake’s eyes.

  His fingers twitched a few times, and he was still.

  “Blake,” I said, tears streaming down my face when I said his name. He couldn’t be dead. He had to hold on. I couldn’t lose him, too.

  How was I supposed to go on when I was losing everyone I loved?

  “I could have healed him!” I yelled, still trying to fight Chef’s iron grip. “Why didn’t you let me heal him?!”

  “You wanted me to let you heal your boyfriend, when you couldn’t even heal me?” his hot voice flooded into my ear. “Not a chance. You’re worthless, girl. And worthless things don’t belong on this boat.”

  He threw me to the ground, picked up the bloody knife, and the point of it was the last thing I saw before it slammed through my skull.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  When I opened my eyes next, I was in the hydra’s cave, staring at Rachael’s swollen, blackened body.

  “No.” I pulled my hand off her arm, not wanting to touch her. “Not here. I don’t want to be here. I can’t take any more of this. Please—make it stop.” My head pounded in the spot above the bridge of my nose—where Chef had stabbed me—and I rubbed at it, trying to make the pain go away.

  “What are you talking about?” someone asked from next to me—Ethan. He stared at me, his eyes crazed and hollow. “Can you save my sister?”

  I stared back at him, saying nothing. I’d already gone through this once. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t tell him th
at I’d failed. That I was the reason why his sister was gone.

  “I’ll take your silence as a no.” He raised something above his head—the hydra’s fang, dripping with tar-like poison—and rammed it through my heart.

  I struggled for one last gasping breath, and then Ethan smiled wickedly, twisted the fang, and everything went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  This time when I opened my eyes, I was running down my street in Kinsley. My heart burned where Ethan had stabbed it with the hydra’s fang, but all I could think was—keep running. You have to get home.

  This was different than the other times. Those times, I’d woken up during something that had happened to me in the past. Where I was now—running down my street, trying to get home—wasn’t something from my past. This felt real.

  Then again, the first few times I’d woken up had felt real, too. For all I knew, they were real now.

  Could reality as I knew it have been changed?

  No, I thought. Because that would mean that Becca was dead, and Blake was dead, and that I was dead. Which I clearly wasn’t, because here I was, running down my street in Kinsley.

  Had something happened to me in Kerberos? Something that made me black out, have gruesome visions, and wake up, having no idea what I’d done between then and now?

  I had no idea. All I knew was the one thought repeating in my mind—I had to get home.

  Everything in Kinsley looked exactly how it had been when I’d left, down to the muddy snow in piles along the sides of the street. Finally I reached my house, and I ran up to the porch, swinging the door open and hurrying inside.

  A dismembered arm waited for me in the entranceway, flung onto the floor like discarded trash. The silver watch on the wrist was unmistakably my step-dad’s. The man who had raised me—who felt more like my dad than Apollo himself.

  I keeled over and threw up. Once my stomach had emptied, I ran through the living room, screaming for my parents. People could live without arms—Chef had lost his arm, and he’d survived.

  Just because I’d seen my dad’s arm didn’t mean he was dead.

  But then I entered the kitchen, where more limbs dangled from the ceiling. My dad’s other arm, both of my mom’s arms, and both of their legs. Hanging with rope, dripping blood into puddles on the tile floor.

  I screamed, falling onto my knees at the sight of the morbid scene before me. This couldn’t be happening. Hadn’t there been a protection spell around the house to keep monsters from entering? How could one of them had gotten through? This couldn’t be real.

  I shut my eyes, trying to make it all disappear. But when I opened them again, nothing had changed. My kitchen was a slaughterhouse.

  I had to get out of here.

  I ran back to the living room, and that was when I saw them—two heads, placed on the coffee table like decorative ornaments.

  My mom and my dad.

  I screamed again and collapsed on the floor in heaving sobs, covering my eyes as I cried. My parents were gone. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move—all I could feel was the bone-chilling realization that I would never be able to see them again. How was I supposed to live through this? It wasn’t fair. Why was I alive, and they were dead?

  More importantly—who did this to them? And why?

  Then someone opened the door, and it slowly creaked open until hitting the wall. I looked up, and saw a figure in a black cloak standing in the doorway, his features covered in shadow.

  He pulled out a gun and aimed it at my head.

  The bang of the shot threw me back into the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I woke up to a thunderous crack and gasped for air. The horrible scenes I’d just lived through flashed through my mind—images of all the people I loved, dead. My heart raced, the chill of loss pounding into my bones as my eyes fluttered open.

  I was lying down in the center of a small boat. It was the size of a fishing boat, but made of all wood. Erebus and Danielle stared down at me, both of them sitting on a bench along the back. Danielle casually drank from a bottle of water, and Erebus manned the oars.

  “What just happened?” I pushed myself up to sitting position and rubbed my temples, trying to force the images I’d seen out of my mind. I glanced next to me, where Chris was still asleep, his blank expression showing nothing of whatever he was experiencing in his mind. Hopefully it wasn’t anything as horrible as what I’d gone through just now.

  Now that I was awake, it was clear that all of those terrifying, gory scenes had been dreams. But they’d felt so real when they were happening. I’d never been prone to nightmares… was that what they were like?

  I shuddered, trying to shake the horrors away. I would never laugh at my sister again the next time she woke up screaming and scared from a dream.

  “You drank from the River of Dreams.” Erebus unzipped his bag and pulled out a full water bottle, tossing it to me. “I wish you’d told me you were thirsty,” he said. “I would have offered that to you if I’d known. And those are automatically refillable, by the way. They’ll never go empty.”

  He should have offered us water upfront instead of letting us assume he had some in his bag, but I didn’t want to complain to a primordial deity. So I opened the bottle and took a swig. The water wasn’t as delicious as the water from the River of Dreams, but it would do.

  “That river’s seriously called the River of Dreams?” I asked, shaking my head. “It was more like the River of Nightmares.”

  “The water from the river makes whoever drinks it pass out and have vivid nightmares of their worst fears,” Erebus explained. “All the fresh water in Kerberos comes from the river. Immortals don’t need food and water to survive, but we do experience hunger and thirst, although at much greater intervals than mortals. Those locked in Kerberos have a choice—dehydrate themselves to an unbearable level of thirst, or drink from the River of Dreams and descend into to their worst nightmares. Both options are agonizing, and are enough to drive anyone mad, especially after centuries of torture.”

  I nodded as I took in his words, grateful that he’d brought us water bottles so we wouldn’t have to make that same choice. Although after those nightmares, I had no doubt that I would dehydrate myself forever if it meant never seeing those horrible visions again.

  “How long was I asleep?” I asked. Dark gray clouds still covered the sun, so it was impossible to tell what time it was. “And where are my bow and arrows?”

  “About four hours,” he said. “I got you and Chris onto the boat, and we’ve been floating down the river ever since. I stored your weapons inside the bench while you were asleep.” He stood up, opened the bench, and handed me my bow and quiver. I swung both of them over my back, feeling complete now that I had them back on me.

  “Will Chris be up soon?” I glanced at his sleeping body again.

  “He had more water than you, so he’ll be asleep for longer,” Erebus answered, situating himself back down. “He should wake up relatively soon, though.”

  “Good,” I said, and then I glanced at Danielle, who had just taken another sip of her water. “How’d you know not to drink from the river?” I asked her. “I know you knew. I saw the guilt in your eyes when I asked you why you weren’t having anything to drink, right before I fell asleep.”

  “Erebus told me,” she said. “At first, I wanted to run to the river with you and Chris. But he pulled me back and told me to stop. When I asked him why, he told me, but it was too late to stop you and Chris—you’d already started drinking the water.”

  “You were all running fast, and I only had time to get to one of you,” Erebus added. “Danielle was closest.”

  “It would have been a lot easier if you’d warned us about the water before we were running distance from the river,” I said.

  “And I would have thought that you knew better than to run up to a river in a prison dimension designed to torture those inside of it and start drinking from it,” he said, his eyes sh
arp.

  “I was thirsty,” I said, although heat rose to my cheeks and I glanced down at my feet, since I knew he was right.

  He sat back and shook his head. “You should just be glad that it was a shallow part of the river, and not a part where any creatures live,” he said. “If they’d sensed you, they would have pulled you under before you knew what was happening.”

  I shuddered, not wanting to think about the what-ifs. I’d already had enough torture for one day.

  “Do you want to know another reason why Danielle was the one I stopped?” Erebus asked, continuing before I could answer. “Because despite being thirsty, she was the only one who paused to think about what she was doing.”

  “I got the message the first time you said it,” I said, glaring at him. “What I did was stupid and impulsive, because I should have known better than to trust anything in Kerberos. And after the nightmares I just had from that water, you can sure as hell trust that I won’t make that same mistake again. So there’s no need to rub it in anymore. Okay?”

  “I wasn’t rubbing it in,” he said. “I was just ensuring that my point got through. You were lucky that the only thing that happened to you was a few bad dreams. If you’d done something else—for instance, if you grabbed one of those fruits hanging from the trees overhead—it would be a whole lot worse.”

  “What happens to people who eat the fruits?” I looked up, noticing them for the first time. They resembled peaches, except they almost seemed to glimmer. My mouth watered at the sight of them.

  “You don’t want to know.” He leaned back and rowed faster, making it clear that he wasn’t going to say any more.

  “Fine,” I said. “But since we’re on the topic of food, and you told us to let you know when we need anything, I guess I should tell you that I’m starving.”

  “Now you’re getting the hang out this.” He paused his rowing again to open his backpack and pull out a protein bar. “I’ve got enough in there for the entire trip, so whenever you’re hungry, let me know.”