by Skyler Andra
Why didn’t Locke listen to me? The foolish, headstrong, crazy woman made the deal with Hades anyway, thinking he’d honor it. Then she descended into the underworld like some gullible child chasing a lollipop from a kidnapper. Vanished from my life for good. The love of my days; the one woman who made me feel like part of a family again.
“Get in the vehicle!” a soldier barked at me while jabbing a gun into my back, which prompted me to stumble forward.
The drug they’d given me, well, shot into my neck with a dart, burned in my veins, making me drowsy. I was helpless without my powers, which had vanished once Rane, Locke and I entered the Parisian city limits. This was such a big mistake. We should never have come here. I had the right philosophy when I looked after numero uno. At least that never got me captured.
Two soldiers dressed in dark camouflage gear seized me by the arms and dragged me up the steps and into the van, throwing me into the seat.
Fuck. I yanked at the handcuffs binding my wrists together.
Beside me landed Rane, still with six darts in his neck and out cold. What had taken two to bring me to my knees in a fist fight took double for him. Bloody strong beast, I’d give him that.
“You fucks are gonna pay for your little trick in the catacombs,” said another soldier, wiping the blood from his nose where I’d broken it.
He spat on me, and I kicked the air near him, making them laugh. The drug had stolen all my coordination, and three of each of the soldiers spun in my vision. Pretty soon I’d be knocked out. I gave myself a few minutes before I succumbed to it.
“Wait to see what he has in store for you,” the dick taunted. “Won’t have your little powers once he’s done.”
“Who?” I slurred, more than mildly curious for any information I could glean to aid my plan on getting out of this little mess so I could do what I did best.
“You’ll see,” they sneered.
The van rocked from the soldiers slamming the door. I heard them get in up front before the engine groaned to life, its tires screeching as it ripped away from the curb.
Where the hell were they taking us? Who was this mysterious person they were taking me to? How the heck was I getting out of this one?
I didn’t get an answer as the drug sucked me into unconsciousness.
****
I woke god knows how long later. Sunlight peeked under the cracks beneath the doors. The light hurt my eyes, and I squinted against it. My whole body felt lethargic and heavy, my thoughts slow like a computer from two thousand and one. Most likely a side effect from the drug wearing off.
We’d been traveling some hours if it was morning. I wondered where we were. Somewhere in the French countryside?
Something twitched and shifted beneath me. Mumbles burbled from someone inside the van.
Rane. Fuck. I’d collapsed on him. When I glance down, his eyes were half lidded. Slobber dribbled down his mouth. He was still out of it. Best not to piss off the avatar of Ares unless I wanted fireballs for breakfast. Slowly I picked myself off him, leaning against the van’s wall for support.
“Ge… offff her,” he mumbled.
What was he trying to say? Get off? I already did. Get her? Get off her? Who? I glanced down. Only he and I were in the van.
“Do you mean Locke?” I asked.
Rane rolled his eyes slowly. “Ge… offff her.”
“Don’t worry, War Hammer,” I said, shuffling over before resting Rane’s head in my lap. “Locke will be okay. If that dick Hades touches her, she knows how to defend herself.”
“Noooo…” Rane huffed and gave up.
“Let it wear off, War Hammer,” I said, patting his head, hoping to give him what little comfort I could afford. “I’ll think of a way out of this.”
But instead of conjuring up some elaborate plan to trick the soldiers once they opened the doors, my mind drifted to Locke.
Was she okay? Why didn’t she listen to me? When it came down to it, she didn’t care for me. She was just like everybody else, like all the groupies that hung off me for whatever they could get from me. All the young and beautiful girls wanting free passes into the exclusive clubs where they could be seen and grab the attention of managers, model scouts or movie executives. Just like all of the girls wanting to party on the yachts to take selfies and boast about it on their social media accounts. All of the girls wanting to be driven in expensive cars to pretentious restaurants where wankers served us up some ridiculously named dish that tasted like mud.
The car rocked as if it had hit a pothole in the road. I lurched, my stomach jarring Rane, which caused him to grumble.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” I reassured.
Why did I have to fall for her? What was my heart thinking?!
After my mom died of cancer and my dad was thrown in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, a part of my soul was torn from me. Filled with fury, I vowed never to care for anyone again—never to get emotionally invested in anyone else or let anyone close to me in case they were stolen from me. Oh, how I despised the world for taking my family from me. I’d cursed god and everyone on this Earth. That’s probably why Hermes chose me. Because I didn’t fear the wrath of Zeus or what he might do to me. Someone with nothing left to lose was a formidable adversary.
That all changed when I met Locke, though. I don’t know if I blamed her Cupid powers for meddling with me, or if it was her own crazy, weird, irresistible magic. Regardless of who was to blame, my wounds had started to heal and the pain I’d buried deep down dissolved. Once I’d found her again after her four-month hiatus from anything pantheon related, I found myself wanting to be by her side whenever the moment allowed it. At first that frightened me. Wanting someone. A friend, a lover. I really meant it when I had said I’d help her if she needed it, to take her away from all the avatar business.
Fuck, she had turned me into a helpless sap.
What had she brought me from the moment we met? Nothing but trouble and heartache. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Wanting her. Needing her. And I didn’t think that madness had any correlation with Eros’ vanishing act.
Maybe I was slowly going crazy. The pantheon believed me to be useless after I’d failed to track her down and find the threat lurking in the background, or even any trace of Eros’ mysterious disappearance from Olympus. Rane thought me to be a buffoon who just messed around and didn’t take my avatar duties seriously. Byron questioned me relentlessly in case my story might change, as if he suspected me of lying .
Well fuck them all! I tried my hardest.
At that moment, I heard snippets of conversations in my mind and I sat up straighter, listening closer. Hermes was talking with someone, but no one replied. The words repeated over and over. Messages to me.
“Get out, my child,” he kept saying. “He’s back.”
“Who’s back?” I asked in my head.
But I couldn’t get a clear signal. My connection faded in and out like static scratching on a car radio. I attributed it to the drug’s residual effects or the fact that we’d left the Parisian city limits.
“Hermes?” I glanced down at Rane who watched me, his eyes wider now, more awake and clearer.
“I can’t help you this time.” The faint voice echoed in my head like bells of doom.
Dammit. My patron, like the rest of the gods, was fickle and usually left me to my own devices besides the times when he really wanted something done. So when he abandoned me to my own fate, I knew shit really was hitting the fan.
But, on the bright side, my powers were returning. Maybe I could use this to my advantage to get us out of this mess. With Rane by my side, we’d be unstoppable, and I pitied the poor fool who got in his way.
“War Hammer,” I whispered. “Can you hear your god?”
“Sares,” he mumbled thickly, his lips partially paralyzed until the drug wore off completely.
“Never mind,” I dismissed, patting his head again, putting aside that idea for now.
I focuse
d my mind, stretching out my reach, searching for any piece of information I could get. Fragments flashed in my mind, but I was too foggy to get a clear picture. Highway signs, the writing on them blurred. Red dots on maps that people posted as they checked into various locations on social media. I tapped the side of my head, not that it did any good. Eventually I got a name.
Tennessee.
What the hell were we doing back in the US? How did we get back here? Obviously through dodgy back door channels and on a private plane. My stomach sunk to my toes. Who the hell were we dealing with here? The military had a lot of money, but when I’d checked their records, every cent was accounted for in their budget. Only off the record budgets like those pumped into black projects called for expenses like kidnapping avatars.
Harnessing all the concentration I could muster, I honed in our location, checking the GPS on the soldier’s phones. The vans were approaching Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee. If we were involved with an air force black project, then we were probably tied in with some freaky aliens and Area 51 shit, likely to be tortured and used as weapons against any foreign threat to the United States.
The pit of my stomach tightened with dread. We needed to get our of here, and fast, before we were turned into lab rats and used as zombie soldiers or Manchurian Candidate assassins.
The van slowed and took a right, heading down a bumpy road.
“War Hammer!” I hissed and slapped Rane on the face. I shook him, trying to anger him enough to be ready for when the doors finally opened.
“Mads,” he barked, but it still came out sloppy and drowsy.
There was no way Rane was helping me fight our way out. He was in no state to do anything much. If I prodded him enough he might shoot off a few fireballs and kill us both by accident. Now it was all up to me to save the day. A huge feat for me when I wasn’t used to saving anyone’s skin but my own. When push came to shove, I wasn’t sure how I’d fare, especially if the other avatars were as groggy as Rane. I might have more power than the average human, I may slip out of tight spots with ease, but I couldn’t dodge bullets, and I certainly couldn’t carry six bodies. That left me with one option. Kill the driver and steal the van. But could I get out of an air force base without being blown up?
Even then, things might go wrong with my plan. I needed a back up. After the way we’d left things with Haveron and Blake, I doubted the avatars of Poseidon and Zeus would come to our rescue. I only trusted one other person in this world besides myself.
Locke. The crazy woman was whip smart, and I had every confidence that she’d find a way out of the underworld to get us the hell out of here. To reunite us. But to do so, I had to get a message to her.
Normally it was Hermes’ job to cross the boundaries between the living and dead to deliver messages to the underworld. A difficult task when I was trapped in here however. Made even more difficult because I was half dizzy, muddled and groggy. But if we had any chance of survival, I had to penetrate the two worlds.
“Locke, hear me you weird, crazy girl,” I called out inside my mind. “I know you can here me.”
I waited for what seemed like an eternity for her response.
Nothing. I tried again. And again. All with no luck.
“Fuck,” I swore.
The van lurched as it screeched to a halt. Voices shouted. Footfalls stomped outside the van.
“Get them inside and strapped up,” ordered a man with a nasally voice.
“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers replied.
My heart slammed into my sternum.
Dammit. I was running out of time. Luckily I knew just the man who could help me. Call him somewhat of an old friend. One who owed me a favor. One who wasn’t trapped in the underworld, whose barriers I could not cross.
Inside the building, I mentally fumbled along the corridor, following the ethernet cable to a security computer. There I plugged into it, typed an email, and sent it. It pinged on my friend’s end, registering as email two thousand and forty. All unread.
Crap. Maybe he’d changed email address since last we spoke.
I scanned the airwaves, hunting for his burner phone because I know he wouldn’t keep the same number for longer than a month.
The front door of the van slammed shut.
My chest heaved for air. I didn’t have much time.
“Was happ’n?” Rane asked, but I ignored him.
At a speed faster than any earthly computer, I pieced together data to trace my friend. I sent out a string of messages to all phones connected to it. All encoded in a language only he’d understand. With the last bit of air in my lungs, I hoped he’d get the message and help. I’d haunt the prick from the afterlife if he didn’t.
Keys fumbled in the van’s lock.
I scrambled to the side, positioning myself for the best vantage point.
The door swung open wide.
I called upon all the power I could muster, which at present accounted for about thirty percent. I threw it at the weapons and they melted. The soldiers hissed and let them drop to the ground.
Another man stepped into view with a dart gun aimed at me. He shot and two more bolts struck me. One on the leg, another in my abdomen. Hot drugs lanced into my flesh, turning it dense and heavy like a dead leg.
Dammit. I hadn’t anticipated that. There went my plan to escape. Good thing for my backup plan. I just hope it worked. Hope it got to Locke through my friend.
The man smiled at me. “Hello, Mads, my old slippery little friend.”
“I know you,” I slurred, my voice thick from the narcotic he’d injected. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I have been for a long time,” taunted the man, a little weasel that I never trusted since meeting him four years earlier. “Once the girl completes my little plan and I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you were too.”
Chapter 6
Locke
Here’s the thing that you don’t necessarily remember when you’re in a relatively pleasant underground afterlife that is run by a guy who is nice enough to let you go, even if he is probably dicking with you. It’s the fact that you are in a deep underground where it’s dark, the air is stale, and there’s a butt load of stairs.
A few steps into the tunnel, I’d left all of the light very firmly behind me. I didn’t care for the dark much. It evoked all my childhood nightmares of boogeymen beneath my bed that my mother dismissed as fanciful creations of my imagination.
I scrambled in the murk, lifting my foot and toeing for the next step. It reminded me of vertigo. My mind swayed in the darkness. I couldn’t tell up from down and it didn’t take too long before my stomach dropped down to my knees. My breath came in short puffs as I groped for the wall, reaching for anything to steady me. I found a jagged edge and leaned against it as I sucked in panicked breaths.
My mind started to race as thoughts of being buried alive and entombed in this tunnel started to fill my head. Images of my tombstone and my three men crowded around it, leaving roses on my grave flashed in my mind. I was bombarded with both fear and melancholy.
“Eros, wherever you are, help me out of here.” My ragged voice echoed in the dark. “Get me back to my men. Save me from the underworld. Come back. Just come back. I’ll be your loyal servant, I swear.”
I hoped for the god of love to hear me. We’d never had a connection, no direct line of communication that the other avatars possessed. I had no clue if Eros heard me or if he was even listening from wherever the elemental was… an eternal break from all the bickering in Olympus, probably. Still, I clung to the hope he might answer my prayer. He didn’t.
However, the act of praying helped me feel a little normal again. I righted myself and recalled what I had to do.
One step at a time. One million potential cruel steps in total…or who knew how many.
Hades had suggested I wouldn’t make it. The lord of the underworld wasn’t going to help me beyond leading me to this tunnel. I hoped he wasn’t purposely lea
ding me astray… could this be trap that lead to the fiery pits of hell?
Just keep moving, Locke, I told myself.
I grasped for fresh air, for some deep heat to enter my aching muscles, and for the world’s longest bath. Empty handed, I put one foot in front of another. Each step that I didn’t stumble became a victory celebrated. Every minute that I didn’t sit down, clutch the side of my head, and start gibbering about the weight of the darkness was a win.
I clung to my men’s faces and the memories of them. Rane’s hard hands moving over my body, Mads’ grin when he pulled up into an embrace, and Byron’s odd bitterness melting into something painfully sweet.
Slowly they faded into the darkness and I found myself grasping for them as well. I tried to distract myself. For god knows how long, I sang every song I knew until my throat was dry. That’s what Mads would have done, I thought as I continued to sing past the strain in my voice. It was the only thing keeping me from descending into a mad stupor.
At some point in my climb, I’d finished half of my first water canteen and a bag of trail mix. I started to hear voices. They were vague at first like a whisper from another room rather than anything concrete. The Murmurs I realized came from my own conscience. The only enemy that I had to worry about in the dark was myself. I pondered that for a moment. Throughout my life I’d hit a few dark points, and I only got through them by the skin of my teeth. The one who’d dragged me through a lot of it was Byron.
Yes, he dragged you through when your mother died, dragged you through most of college. Then what? What happened after that?
