I set off.
Theo was right. Being raised human meant my alliance fell with them. Perhaps, if I’d still been Persephone, I wouldn’t have cared about Cassie. Or maybe I would have understood Delphyne’s position better. After all, she was a creature trying to fulfill her own duty; that of guardian of the Oracle. Would I have applauded and respected the extremes that Delphyne had gone to in order to accomplish what she’d been born to do?
I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I almost tumbled into a huge hole, too large to jump.
No problem. I shot a vine at a boulder on the other side in order to swing myself across. The boulder glowed so white hot, I could feel the heat suffusing into my ribbon of light.
I started to sweat as I attempted to pull my vine away. The heat flowing into my arm grew to near unbearable proportions. And it seemed that the vine had fused to the white heat of the rock. I had to disconnect from it somehow.
I felt myself getting dangerously overheated. I shot a vine from my other hand at the boulder, which intensified the heat, but allowed me to destroy the rock.
The heat disappeared, which was great, but now I had no way across the hole.
I rested a moment, wiping off the sweat the best I could. I glanced up at the ceiling. I could attempt to shoot my light up there and swing across but I wasn’t willing to risk that it had been booby-trapped in the same way. Dangling-crispy-Sophie was not how I wanted to bite it.
“Hello?” I called out. My voice sounded muffled. It was as if I’d stumbled into some kind of dead zone. It creeped me out.
I couldn’t go forward because of the hole, so I took a step back. There was a grinding noise and the walls to either side of me pushed in slightly. That couldn’t be good.
Maybe I could just run for it. I rapidly pivoted and tried to run back out the way I’d come. I bounced off an invisible shield and landed on my front, millimeters from the gaping maw.
The walls pushed in some more.
I really wished I could remember how I’d thought as Persephone. Maybe she’d have some brilliant solution to all this.
My few memories were all I knew of her. Like a movie slowly unfolding, but without any insightful voiceover to make me privy to Persephone’s views on the world. If I couldn’t get inside her head, then I only had my own experiences to guide me. Sixteen years of humanity to form my moral compass.
At that moment, lying on the edge of the precipice, I felt a clear distinction between right—saving Cassie and even Bethany—and wrong: what Delphyne had done to Mrs. R. But was that seeing the trees and not the forest? Was I getting hung up on the death of a single individual because I had a purely human emotional attachment to her? Would the traits that would win me the battle and defeat Delphyne ultimately cost me the war?
And did any of this even matter, I wondered, as the walls closed in even further, now mere inches from either side of me. One more thrust inward and I’d be smooshed.
A sudden longing for my real mother swamped me. Forget navigating boys and cliques, I needed her to safely guide me through the minefield of my continued existence. What if I couldn’t find her? What if she didn’t want to be found?
I had to acknowledge that possibility. Either through fear of some kind of reprisal for whatever had motivated a visit to Hades, foul play already done, or simply because my plans went against everything she’d taught me, maybe Demeter was going to stay away permanently.
In which case, I was on my own. And the only thing I could be certain of, was that right here, right now, I had save my own butt so I could finish off a dragon and rescue my classmates.
I couldn’t use my goddess powers, so I had to survive this as my human self. With a touch to my pendant to center me and a deep breath, I did what humans had been doing throughout history.
I took a leap of faith.
More of a roll, really. I tumbled off the edge of the hole into the great unknown as the walls above me ground together.
Falling down the rabbit hole, or in this case, dragon hole, did nothing to stifle my anger at the entire situation. Luckily, I landed without too much incident or damage to my person, jumped to my feet, and strode off.
Hannah, Theo, and Kai almost collided with me as they rounded a corner. I didn’t even pause, cold fury driving me.
Theo and Hannah hurriedly stepped back, out of my way. Kai merely raised an eyebrow at the naked thirst for revenge written on my face, then fell into silent step beside me.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked softly.
“Mrs. Rivers is dead.” Behind me I heard Theo spit out a colorful curse. “Now Delphyne has to die.”
Kai touched a fingertip to the back of my head. It came away bloodied. His eyes darkened. “So she does,” he agreed.
One more sharp turn left and we hit the center of the maze. My breath caught at the sight before me.
If I’d been asked what the center would look like, I would have guessed it was some kind of cavern, with various pathways branching off of it.
Instead, I found myself in the middle of a ravine. Hot sunshine blazed out of a cloudless, sea-blue sky. Unlike our ravine out back of Hope Park, this one was not trees and dirt, but rock formations. Enormous golden rock cliffs scaled away on either side. A lush, olive green foliage covered their upper third.
Below my feet was more rock, sculpted by eons of wind into small stone dunes.
“I never thought to see this again,” Theo breathed. There was a catch in his voice.
“Where are we?” Hannah whispered in awe.
“The Ravine of Phaedriades,” Theo said.
Uh, Dorothy, that didn’t sound like we were in Kansas anymore. “We’re in Greece?”
“Of a sorts,” Kai explained. “We’re in ancient Greece. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”
Delphyne. “She willed all this into existence?” I asked in amazement.
“One determined dragon.” Theo adjusted his hold on his chain for a better grasp. “She’s this way.” He led us off.
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s where the Sibylline Rock was. Where the Oracle sat.”
The stone ground was so uneven, that I had to watch my footing carefully. It would suck to get this far only to make easy snacking because I twisted my ankle.
Theo shot his arm out to stop us. He pressed us back behind a boulder and tilted his head down and to the right. “Look, but don’t be seen,” he whispered to me.
I peered over to where he’d indicated and exhaled in relief.
Cassie was alive.
Far below us lay a wide, flat section of rock, with a fissure grooved deep into it. Straddling the void was a stone slab, resembling a sacrificial table.
“Scootch” Hannah hissed. She jostled me over so she could see as well.
Cassie stood on the slab garbed in a white flowing robe, arms outstretched to the sky, head thrown back, chanting. We were still too far to hear what she said, but she radiated power.
“Cassandra reborn,” Kai said.
A ring of unfamiliar trees formed a semi-circle behind her. Even though I’d never seen them before, I knew instantly what they were; could almost hear the song of their life calling sweetly to me, Persephone, their Goddess of Spring.
“Laurus Nobilis,” I said, remembering. Even though they could reach almost sixty feet tall, these were maybe half that. Impressive nonetheless. Small, pale yellow-green flowers bloomed in pairs beside each leaf.
My hands itched to touch them. I sharply reminded myself there would be plenty of time for that. First, Cassie.
Delphyne lay at Cassie’s feet, her heavy head resting on her front claws. Her eyes scanned this way and that, but as of yet, had not detected us up high. Every few seconds, her tail twitched violently. I shuddered, r
emembering my last encounter with that particular part of her anatomy. I had no desire to reacquaint myself with it.
Considering this was Hannah’s first glimpse of a dragon, she was being weirdly quiet. I glanced over at her. She had her head in her hands.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying not to sound scared.
“My head,” she moaned. “It’s killing me.”
Theo stroked her back. “Take a deep breath, Saul. I think it’s the disconnect of your memory loss and the visual proof of Cassie’s existence. Your brain doesn’t know how to handle it.”
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Hannah raised her eyes to mine. “I suck it up and we deal.”
“We’ll have to climb down. There’s a path.” Theo had assessed our options.
“Are you nuts?” I asked. “I’m not a goat. Kai can jump us down.”
Kai shook his head. “Not without attracting a lot of attention, I can’t. I’m not dad with his invisibility cap.”
Theo gave me a gentle prod. “Get moving.”
Fine. I resigned myself to taking the scenic route and hoped the path wasn’t too narrow.
It wasn’t. Because it wasn’t a path. “You want me to scale the rock face?” I asked in disbelief as we moved into position.
“More like rappel,” Theo encouraged. “It’s like this. You do your brilliant light trick and lower us all down.”
“I’m going to fight a dragon. Do I have to deal with heights, too?”
Theo looked at me sternly. “Get over it.”
I wanted to tell Theo that I hated his stupid self.
Except how could I get mad at the guy who’d given up everything to keep me alive and save humanity?
I scowled and stomped off.
Theo followed me. “You’re so pissed right now. But you feel guilty so you’re keeping quiet.”
Argh! He knew me too well.
He broke into a grin. “Your eye is twitching.”
I slapped a hand over my eye, which was, in fact, twitching. “You done?”
Theo chuckled. “Magoo, it was my decision to save you and pay the price. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He shrugged. “Unless you screw up. Then I’m going to make you feel soooo bad.”
“I hate you.”
He smiled. “Feel better?”
I grinned back at him. “Yes.”
We returned to Kai and Hannah.
I looked down and groaned. “I’m gonna throw up.” It was too far.
Kai stifled a laugh at my discomfort.
I shot him a “not funny” glare. “You think it’s so easy? You do it.”
“I don’t do ribbons. Kai smash with destructive beams.”
Muttering what part of him I wanted to smash, I snaked out the light of my right hand to wrap around Theo and Kai, binding them close together in a very homoerotic Greek hug.
Man, were they annoyed, but I had to get my kicks where I could.
“I don’t want to know what you have planned for me,” Hannah muttered, massaging her temple.
“Baby,” I flirted, “we’re going to be closer than we’ve ever been.”
With the light from my left hand, I bound Hannah to me. Now that we were all trussed up together, I wrapped the ends of both ribbons snugly around a large rock at the lip of the cliff.
“It’s not a present, Martha Stewart,” Kai growled. “Get on with it.”
The four of us shuffled awkwardly to the edge. Hannah, Kai, and Theo because that’s the only way they could walk given their bindings and me because, well, I was scared out of my tree.
“The first step is the hardest,” Hannah said brightly.
“Then it’s all downhill,” Theo added.
“Couple of real weisenheimers you—” The rest of my sentence turned into a smothered shriek as Kai jerked hard to the side to unbalance me and cause me to tumble off the rock.
When my terror had abated to mere mind-numbing fear, I managed to stop our fall so we could sway in mid-air while I hyperventilated.
“Now would be a good time to close your eyes and not look,” Theo said. “Just lower us down.”
Slowly, I let out my light, jerking us down the rock face. It didn’t matter that we careened into outcropping brambles and random foliage. Nothing was going to keep me from my plodding journey to reach the ground.
I almost kissed the rock once my feet landed safely on terra firma.
“Damn girl,” Theo groused, rubbing his neck. “I’ve seen smoother plane crashes.”
Kai touched a scratch mark on his arm that was bleeding from a branch. “Next time I’m risking the jump.”
So, no thanks there. At least Hannah patted my arm supportively.
Now at the bottom of the ravine, the four of us crept along the rock wall until we could peer around it for a closer view of Cassie.
We were in hearing range now. I strained my ears to catch what Cassie was saying.
“One to overthrow. One to face the dark. One to lose it all.”
Just once, I’d like that girl to say something like “one to have a nice day,” or to spew winning lottery numbers.
Separating us from her rock was a small body of water. I couldn’t see it since that would involve breaking cover to edge toward the lip of the rocky ground I stood on and peer down, but I could hear it babbling below us. A narrow, precarious rock bridge connected our rock formation to theirs.
“That thing looks like it’ll crash into the creek if we even step foot on it,” I said quietly.
“Not creek. Castalian Spring,” Theo corrected.
“Whatever. We better cross it one at a time, and quickly.”
“Not so fast, Speedy Gonzales,” Hannah said. “Smell that?”
I sniffed the air and caught a whiff of a sweet smelling gas.
“The Oracle didn’t just predict the future because she was psychic,” she explained. “She was high.” She nodded toward the spring. “Full of Ethylene. A narcotic.”
“Cassie wasn’t high when she gave me my truths in class.”
“Yeah,” Theo said, “but this is running predictions all day, all night. Girl needs a little pharmaceutical assistance.”
Hannah looked toward the water, thoughtful. “Since the spring runs around that rock, the closer we get, the more we’ll inhale. Couple of minutes and we’ll be chanting, too. But not coherently.”
“So we have two minutes,” Kai said. “Plenty of time.” He seemed impatient to get going.
He could wait another second. “Was Delphyne going to just keep Cassie here indefinitely?” Maybe having some insight into what she’d planned would give us an edge.
Theo nodded. “Til Cassie died. Yeah.”
I shot Theo an exasperated look. “Then what? Rampage the world for some other unsuspecting descendent?”
“Why rampage when you can train the handmaiden,” Kai said.
Kai’s words didn’t make any sense and I told him so.
“One Oracle, many lesser priestesses,” he explained. “Conceivably, one could be trained to fulfill the duties.”
“And she got her spare how? Mail order?” Oh. Of course. “Bethany.” I spied her royal bitchiness just as her name came out of my mouth.
She had emerged from between the laurel trees, also garbed in a white flowing robe, with a black tattoo woven around her upper arm. She held a wriggling snake.
Years of hanging with Hannah, lover of all creatures deadly, enabled me to instantly recognize the scaly darling as a small Python.
“Seems Bethany’s been reunited with a not-so-distant member of her family tree. Cold blooded, tiny brain, so many
traits in common,” I said.
The others leaned in to watch as Bethany, a smug expression on her face, picked up a wooden cup from the ground and held it to Cassie’s lips for her to drink.
“Whoa,” Theo exclaimed. “Bethany is gorgeous.”
“And then some,” Kai agreed.
“Hannah, punch them for me,” I said, looking to her for support. “Hannah?”
She was racing toward the tiny bridge. I shot my light out to yank her back, before she was seen.
“Let go,” she said, struggling. “I want to be with Bethany.”
“Are you all insane?” I glanced back at Bethany. On closer inspection, she did seem to be glowing with hotness. And a compelling confidence as she turned and strode back toward the laurel trees.
Hmmm. No boys, no luxuries, apparently willingly waiting on someone hand and foot? “Stupid cow wasn’t abducted. Delphyne bought her support with those amped up looks.”
“Good trade,” Kai said.
I smacked him, then shook my shoulders out and psyched myself up. “Count of three. Keep an eye out for Bethany when we fire.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Hannah begged.
“I won’t.” On purpose. I couldn’t be held responsible for accidents.
“Theo and Hannah, you get Cassie.”
Hannah nodded and pulled the scarves from her belt loops. She handed one to Theo. “Tie her legs. I’ll do her wrists. She may struggle when we carry her, but at least she can’t flail out and smack us.”
“Smart,” I commented.
“You thought I was just accessorizing, didn’t you?” she retorted.
Guilty as charged.
I took a deep breath. “One, two, three.” The second we bolted forward, Delphyne left her position at Cassie’s feet and took to the sky with a screech.
Heavy purple wings unfolded from her back. The exact shade of her body, they’d been so cleverly folded against her that I hadn’t noticed them until they unfurled. I was amazed something that huge could fly so easily.
No time to gape. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Theo and Hannah bolt for Cassie so I immediately sent my ribbons toward Delphyne in order to dust her into oblivion. They slid right off her scales.
My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy) Page 19
