Six Months with Cerberus

by Lucas, Naomi

  “I need to get to Sicily,” she said. “To meet my father—er—parents.” She regretted giving away that much information from the moment the words left her lips.

  “Sicily? There’s no place here named as such.” The supposed-goddess eyed her with curiosity. “I could ask my lord father, Hades.”

  “Hades?” Cyane said incredulously. She slipped the note back into her pocket. “No, Sicily wouldn’t be here—” I’m going mad. “It’s up there.” She pointed up like a moron. “I need to get back to the...the world above.”

  Cyane scanned the cave-like room for cameras.

  Please god, let there be cameras.

  “Oh. I see,” Melinoe said. “Sicily is a mortal place. Well, if you need to leave then you should speak to my Cerberus. He’s in charge of who goes.”

  Cerberus. Cerberus? Cyane wanted to scream again at the sound of his name. She forced the images his name invoked from her mind.

  Cerberus was the guardian of passage here. But the being she’d encountered wasn’t a three-headed dog, he was a man dressed in Greek armor. She preferred that to the other more monstrous image stalking the periphery of her thoughts.

  “The Greek warrior,” Cyane muttered.

  “Not quite. Cerberus is the offspring of dreaded Typhon and Echidna, like his brothers Hydra and Chimera. He was never a Greek, nor a warrior, but a creature from the old world, and only survived the passing of time through Hades, who gifted him a mortal body to escape Hercules at the end of the hero's labors.”

  Cyane threw her feet over the bed. “Yes, that’s interesting.” She really didn’t want to think of creatures or this ‘old world.’ Not anymore than she needed to in order to escape. “But can you tell me how I can speak to him and have him help me leave this place? He tried to kill me after he saved my life… Is there anyone else I can ask?”

  “Well, there is my father, but Cerberus will attend such a matter, as it is his duty. I’m certain you will speak with both in time.”

  Cyane closed her eyes and scrunched her face.

  Thoughts of boulders being rolled up hills, eagles pecking her organs out, and endless torments come to mind. Only yesterday, she was stressed about finding cheap, safe hostels to sleep in at night.

  At least she hoped it was only yesterday.

  She looked at Melinoe warily. “What would you suggest I do?”

  Melinoe clapped her hands and jumped off the bed. “We shall get you ready for the party!” The woman spun with excitement.

  “Party?”

  “Yes.” Melinoe twirled back to her, veils swirling in an arch. “A party to celebrate the return of the Queen of the Underworld, my mother Persephone. Both my father and Cerberus will be in attendance. But you can’t look like...like that.” Melinoe grabbed Cyane’s hands, eyeing her clothes as if they were a neighbor’s bag of garbage left outside their door.

  “A party to celebrate Persephone?” Like Thesmophoria? Could the same festival be happening here?

  “Oh yes. We celebrate Her return every year. For a fortnight before Her descent. Immortals, gods alike, all come to join the Lord of the Underworld as he receives his bride. Each day there is a new festivity, a new gift given by those most loyal or seeking favor from Lord Hades or Queen Persephone herself.”

  Not quite the same.

  A fortnight before Persephone’s descent. If that were true, she still had time to get to Sicily.

  “Has the party begun?” Cyane asked.

  “Yes, for several days now. The first day is the arrival, when all the immortals who wish to attend gather, then for the seven days following, there are feasts. During the final six days, we have festivities. A Day of Dancing, a Day of Gifts, a Day of Battles, a Day of Deals, a Day of Deviance, and then finally, the Day of Descent.”

  “And today is...?”

  Melinoe smiled. “The final day of the feast. But first, your clothes.”

  Relief rushed through Cyane. She still had a week.

  Cyane hopped off the bed, her bare feet landing on cold stone. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

  She peered down at herself. Her clothes were still intact. She was no longer wet, and her hair was dry, but her shoes were missing. Besides several bruises and scrapes, and a couple of broken nails, she was fine. Someone had left her clothes on but had taken off her shoes and made her comfortable. She also felt clean, as if she’d been washed, or cleansed of the waters of before. It concerned her that she couldn’t remember.

  She didn’t know if she liked the thought of someone touching her while she’d been unconscious, but as she looked back up at Melinoe, Cyane prayed it’d been the goddess who’d done so. Then the memory of Melinoe’s ghostly fingers under her skin returned, and Cyane shuddered.

  No. I don’t like her touching me either.

  “Where are my shoes?” she asked. She didn’t bother inquiring about her backpack or phone. Somehow she didn’t think they’d survived. If they had, she didn’t think anyone would help her retrieve them.

  “Your clothes do little to emphasize your beauty, and it’s much easier to get what you want when you properly use beauty as a weapon.” Melinoe led her to the alcove where a large bath awaited.

  Cyane didn’t want to follow her, but the strange feeling of reverence, or something otherworldly, compelled her to.

  “As for shoes,” Melinoe said, amused, “you weren’t wearing any when I found you.”

  Cyane frowned.

  Without preamble, the goddess grabbed Cyane’s shirt and tore it from her body as though it were tissue paper. Cyane yelped and tried to cover herself, but Melinoe laughed and plucked the rest of Cyane’s clothes off of her body, tearing them with outstretched fingers.

  Naked and shielding herself, Cyane scurried away, saving the note from her pocket and putting it aside. The goddess snatched her hand, spun her, and pushed her into the bath with a splash. Her strength was shocking.

  Cyane emerged from the steaming water with a gasp, flailing her arms wide.

  “You can’t do that!” she shrieked. “I have rights!” She moved to the side of the tub to hold on.

  But Melinoe was already on the other side of the room, laying out a long, cream gown on the bed. “This will make you look like one of us.”

  Cyane stared at it, at Melinoe, then wrenched her eyes shut and turned back around. She didn’t want to go to the party, let alone get dressed up. Fear was very close to taking over her again. Fear that all of this was real. She didn’t know if that was better or worse than insanity.

  She slipped into the warm, soothing water, and drew her knees to her chest. She appreciated the bath despite her lack of privacy, though it did little to ease her. The last time she’d been submerged, it...it hadn’t been in proper water. She knew that now. At least she hoped she knew that.

  I’ll have to speak to Cerberus again if I want to leave...

  Cyane shivered.

  Fear could easily become terror.

  Metamorphosis

  Cyane rubbed the chiton dress between her fingers. The material was like feathers and warm air had a love-child, and the dress was the result of that union. Melinoe’s excitement increased with each passing moment, making Cyane’s head ache further.

  The goddess stepped back to reveal a mirror on the cave wall. Had it just appeared? The spinning behind Cyane’s eyes increased.

  “You’re ready,” Melinoe announced.

  Cyane didn’t feel ready, though she turned to the mirror anyway.

  The dress was as lovely as it felt, and it flowed like waves around her legs. A gold and purple sash wrapped around her waist, emphasizing her curves. A similar ribbon held up her hair in a loosely braided knot atop her head. The ends of her braids curled around the back of her neck where her hair dripped, still wet.

  I look like a Greek goddess...

  She blushed and fanned out the skirt. The dress’s neckline hung low on her chest—which was comparably larger than the average woman’s—and she couldn’t help but
compare herself to Melinoe in the mirror.

  Her curves and height were outlandish next to the petite goddess. It wasn’t like she was super busty, overweight, or overly tall. She wouldn’t even consider herself outside of the norm. But next to Melinoe, Cyane was all those things and more... lacking in every way. Or having too much. Whatever she was, she felt outrageous and unpretty beside Melinoe.

  Cyane turned from the mirror and pushed the thoughts away.

  I need to get away. From her, from this. The longer she spent with Melinoe, the worse her head spun, and...shapes began to flutter at the edges of her vision.

  Unreal shapes. From the corner of her eye, she’d glimpsed odd shifts of light, flickering humanoid outlines, and wraiths of sobbing women, but each time she tried to catch them head-on, they vanished into the shadows.

  A screaming man appeared beside her.

  Cyane wrenched her eyes shut—holding in a shriek—begging for it to end. More sobbing women appeared behind her closed eyelids. Cyane snapped her eyes back open and shoved her father’s note into the neckline of her dress, securing it as best she could in the folds. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she gulped, turning towards the door. “I have someplace to be.”

  Melinoe, in a titter, agreed and led her from the room.

  They soon entered a series of dark, dimly lit hallways, traversing them through numerous twists and turns. Cyane wasn’t surprised that the decor was the same as everything else she’d seen—cave-like and ominous, with candles perched on carved-out slates everywhere. Beads of wax dripped from all, but the wax never seemed to reach the floor.

  She pitied the person who had to light all of them.

  Melinoe talked up a storm ahead of her, but Cyane barely heard any of it. She knew she should listen, knew she should find out everything she could about these people and this place. But she...couldn’t. The same reverent cloud in her mind that urged her to supplicate herself to the goddess also carried with it an undercurrent of wrongness.

  Melinoe wasn’t her goddess. They weren’t aligned. And so, she fought the compulsion.

  God, what is wrong with me? She’d been kidnapped—or saved, threatened, saved again, and now… She didn’t know what was going on. All she knew for sure was that one moment, she’d been with Captain Haros on his sailboat, and the next, she was deep underwater with white hands tugging her down, drowning and struggling to resurface.

  Somewhere during that time, she’d left a moody morning on the Ionian Sea, to enter a giant cave, to have a man dressed in armor pulling her from the depths.

  Either, she really was in Tartarus (what the hell?) or she’d been drugged up with some shit that would sell for a fortune on the streets and was now part of a live-action-roleplay-group—one who was too committed to realize she wasn’t acting.

  Music filled her ears, lilting tunes played on flutes and strings, echoing softly off the walls around her.

  “We’re almost there, sweet Cyane,” Melinoe said over her shoulder. “You must dance with me.”

  The music built with each step and was soon accompanied by laughter and voices. Up ahead, the hall opened into a decadent foyer with even more candles than Cyane had ever seen in her whole life, creating endless sparks as far as the eye could see above her. Sheer purple and black linens draped precariously throughout, magically avoiding the flames. Some of the flames seemed to bleed together in her mind to create streaks of fire up and down the walls.

  This didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right. Pressure built behind her eyes. She rubbed her brow, trying not to panic.

  People lingered around, talking, whispering, and laughing in small groups. Cyane and Melinoe didn’t remain near them as the goddess pulled her onward, through the foyer, towards the entryway to the ballroom. A hush settled over the strangers. Cyane sensed their attention like arrows to her back.

  Her mouth parted in awe.

  A dark ballroom filled with the beautiful and the grotesque stretched before her. Sweeping ceilings soared so high overhead that the darkness clinging to them was as deep and endless as the night sky. Sparkles and whirls of color danced far off in the dark providing the sensation of sickly, twinkling stars.

  The walls were formed from the same gray stone, except each stone seemed to vary in design. If she looked out of the corner of her eye, she could see patterns emerging, which disappeared when she gazed at them deliberately.

  The room compelled her eyes forward, across the floor, towards the dais on the other end of the room. The throne atop it echoed the castle that housed it, but she couldn't focus on any one aspect as everything seemed to be swallowed up by the imposing figure seated upon it.

  Hades. His name filled her head with wonder and terror. His darkness eclipsed everything else.

  “Cyane? You’re gaping,” Melinoe teased. “Come. Do not make them wish to eat you alive. Most would love to do just that.” She gripped Cyane’s hand tighter and pulled her into this doom with a giggle.

  Cerberus caught sight of Melinoe entering the ballroom a moment before his eyes landed on Cyane. Melinoe tugged the girl after her into a dance, forcing each step by dragging the mortal woman behind her. Their movements were strained with awkward confusion.

  His nostrils flared.

  Anger rushed through him as he watched the women dance. The mortal tripped and stumbled but never quite fell, being caught up by Melinoe’s embrace again and again.

  He stepped out from the shadows and made his way towards them. The swirl of dresses had nothing to do with it.

  He’d hoped to keep Cyane separated from the others, but it hadn’t occurred to him to hide her from Melinoe. He’d planned to keep Cyane locked up until he got the answers he wanted from her. The goddess’s nose for fresh meat was akin to his. She would do anything for a scrap of attention.

  It didn’t matter that Hades was the reason the mortal was here. That question was answered. What mattered was why Hades would go to such shocking and surprising lengths to capture a mortal woman when his lord had never been known to do such a thing before.

  At least never with a mortal, and never with one so lacking in the attributes Hades coveted in women.

  Cerberus couldn’t fathom his lord’s intent, and that infuriated him. The rare times when he’s unpredictable, he abducts and rapes his brother’s daughter.

  No, he didn’t like it when Hades acted outside himself.

  “A mortal woman? Here?” One of the nearby undying said, pulling Cerberus’s thoughts away from Hades.

  “Who is she?” another asked.

  Good question. Who in all the damned souls was she? The dance between the women came to an end.

  “Is she part of the entertainment?” a god said, voicing Cerberus’s thoughts.

  Cerberus walked slowly around the undying, ignoring their questions, keeping his attention on Cyane. Tantalus approached her first and offered a cup of nectar, which she refused after a lingering look. Melinoe tried to engage with the gods around them, but like always, was ignored. Hermes bowed deeply, his winged shoes arching him off the floor, startling the weak female creature that currently took up all of Cerberus’s thoughts.

  As he drew nearer, he noticed her eyes were wide with fear, her skin ashen, and her hands moved nervously at her sides.

  She gives herself away so easily.

  Her gaze fell first to Hermes’s winged sandals, flicked to Hades across the room, and returned to the winged god before her.

  So painfully easily.

  Cerberus could glimpse her mind breaking with each subsequent reaction.

  It allowed him to travel the ballroom in peace. Every immortal was focused on her, sizing her up, reading her like he did, determining if she was a threat or just meat. Deliciously weak meat in an alluring form.

  The mortal didn’t notice when he reached her side. Her gaze was now only for Hermes. Cerberus’s jaw clenched.

  “Beautiful Cyane, it’s delightful to meet you.” Hermes bow
ed his head, the god’s attention flickering towards Cerberus before returning to Cyane. “I swear we’ve met before, long ago.” Hermes’s smile deepened with frustrating warmth and admiration upon the intriguing mortal. His eyes strayed to her breasts and lingered there. “I’m certain we’ve met.”

  Cerberus’s jaw clamped further. Distasteful. Regardless, Hermes’s charm was infectious, especially to women.

  Cerberus wasn’t about to let another god fuck and break the mortal his lord had his sights on.

  “I wish to speak with you,” Cerberus interrupted with a scowl, facing Cyane.

  A chilling, familiar male voice broke Cyane out of her transfixion.

  Cerberus.

  Hermes’s flying and his winged shoes faded from her mind. Each microsecond as her eyes slowly moved towards Cerberus was dread incarnate.

  “You do?” she said lamely, still breathless from the dance. He wasn’t the amalgamation or creature of teeth, snake heads, and rabid snouts that her imagination filled the blanks in with. He was back to being a Greek warrior, helmet and all.

  Thank god.

  Heh. Her temple still pounded.

  She didn’t think she could take another shock so soon. Or ever.

  Cerberus cocked his head to the side as if her question was nothing more than confusion on her part.

  Melinoe squealed with excitement, saving Cyane. She found it hard enough with one god-like man staring holes through her flesh, let alone two. And she could feel them looking at her—it wasn’t a sixth sense, it was physical and disorientating. Her flesh crawled from it.

  Cyane collected herself as Melinoe stole the gods’ attention. Dancing with Melinoe had been spellbinding and torturous. She’d been a ragdoll in the smaller woman’s arms, unable to stop, unable to shy away for fear of seeing screaming phantoms descending upon her, eager to rend her flesh and pull her into the dark.

  She was beginning to fear what would happen to her if she offended Melinoe. If she offended anyone here, even if it was by accident.

  They were fairly alone in this central area of the ballroom. Others had moved away when she wasn’t paying attention, although some of their whispers still reached her ears. They eyed her, gathering around the edges like her fear and confusion was the most delicious entertainment to be had.