by Jaymin Eve
Louis still looked lazily relaxed, and I definitely wanted to be him when I grew up. Of course, there was only so much he could do, especially when Sonaris joined in, sending his magic into the barrier. Louis’ held on for five minutes, and I was pretty sure he had more than a little god in his DNA.
When the barrier crashed, Asher, Connor, and I stepped front and center. We were far less breakable than our friends. “We won’t hurt them if you just come with us,” Lotus said, already well aware of our weaknesses.
The sounds of fighting continued around us, and it was only a matter of time before the other gods came to us. “Okay,” I said softly.
I felt Asher and Connor stiffen next to me. Neither of them argued though. “Promise our friends will not be hurt. Allow Louis to open a step-through and escape, and we will go with you.”
“Maddison, no!” Ilia shouted. I ignored her.
“We can’t beat them,” I reminded everyone. “This is our only option.”
“I agree,” Lotus interrupted. “You have my word.”
A step-through appeared in front of us and she waved her hand. “This will take your friends anywhere they want to go. Just think of the location and you’ll be there.”
“Maddison,” Louis said in warning, but I couldn’t turn to him, I was too busy keeping my eyes on the gods in front of us. Besides, he was about to be a father. I would not risk him either.
My voice croaked. “Please get them to safety. Please. For me.”
He still hesitated, but then cursed. “I’ll take them outside the gates. I’ll be back for you, don’t do anything.”
Everyone started to protest, but Louis was too strong, and as his power wrapped around them all, he yanked them through the step-through. If we lived through this, Ilia was going to kick our asses.
Of course, we had to live first.
The step-through disappeared, and I knew Louis would not be welcome back here. We were on our own. My hands snaked out and grabbed Asher on one side, Connor on the other, and the three of us faced off against the gods.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now you follow us,” Sonaris said, darkness seeping into his words. He was staring at my hands joined with the boys’; he was not happy about it. My energy swirled inside of me, responding to his, and I hated that even a small part of me felt tied to this fucker. I had to figure out how to break that. I had to figure out how to destroy them all.
I’d already made up my mind, the moment my friends were threatened, to bring forth the Hellbringers and kill the gods. If it destroyed Earth … well, it was better than the alternative. If these gods had all the power of the mother of all, the world was ending anyway.
“Move it,” Lotus said, turning and striding away. She didn’t go back to where the fighting was; she wove through the underside of the seating in the stadium until we eventually ducked into a small tunnel and ended up in the middle of the sunken stadium. I felt uneasy, because Sonaris was at our back, making sure none of us did anything stupid.
Like try and stab Lotus in the back.
I was thinking pretty hard about it, my hands itching for a trident. I’d grown quite fond of those big forks.
Lotus spun, knocking my hand from Asher’s. My power shot through me and smashed into her, knocking her back, but not before she managed to prick me with her razor-sharp nails, splashing my blood around.
Unlike hers, mine was not gold, but it did look very dark, almost midnight purple as it splattered across the white stone of the floor. Asher snarled, and then his power joined mine in smashing her against a far pillar. His eyes were pure gold, as I knew they would be, and I wondered if this would call his mother over here. Right now, she was about our only hope to stop this doorway from being opened. Shame she also wanted to kill me so I wouldn’t touch her precious son. Tomorrow’s problem.
My blood sizzled, and steam rose from where it hit the ground. The marble started to disintegrate, until eventually there was a large opening in the ground. A long, winding staircase, black as night with gold flecked through it appeared, descending into the earth.
The stairs are long and narrow.
The words of the verse from the book crossed my mind. What else had it said…? Something about the Hellbringers being in another realm. Freeing them—that made sense now, because we were clearly the ones from two worlds. The Hellbringers would return the balance. And something about the mother and father of all.
I’d let Axl copy the words, thinking he’d be around. The book was in my satchel, but I didn’t want to pull it out in front of the gods. Like it had heard me, heat flared in my pocket and I dug into my jeans, wondering what the hell was burning me.
A piece of paper came free, and written across it was the verse … in Axl’s writing. Holy shit. Somehow he’d known I would need it, and I was really, really grateful for my friend.
The demons that bind them.
The freedom of all.
Atlantis is our gateway, and it will always hold the secrets.
The stairs are long and narrow. The path is short and windy. The end is near when the breath of frost brushes down spines and souls.
Tap three times. Bleed for the cause. Open the doorway. Destroy the gods.
Before anyone noticed, I shoved the paper back in my pocket and watched Lotus. Even as those words ran through my mind. Bleed for the cause. Destroy the gods.
I’d already bled once … how many more times before this was over?
Lotus clapped her hands in delight. “Down the stairs,” she said. “The doorway should be at end.”
We didn’t argue, because I had no doubt she would kill our friends if we didn’t cooperate. I went to descend first, but Asher had other plans. He plucked me up and dropped me behind him. Not wanting to show any cracks in our armor to the gods, I didn’t punch him in the back like he deserved, and followed his broad shoulders down the narrow stairs, Connor right behind me.
It was definitely narrow. Asher had to turn sideways in some sections to fit, and it grew darker as we moved lower, darker and cooler, with the feel of water around us. It took forever to reach the bottom, descending a lot further underground than there should have been actual land beneath the floating island. This was definitely something magical in nature.
“Watch your step,” Asher whispered as he moved into a tunnel.
His arms came around me. “I have a plan,” he whispered, pulling me back and letting Connor exit as well. The gods were right behind us, so there was no time for me to ask about this “plan” of his.
Under here, everyone but me had to crouch, and my head was just about scraping the stone roof. The path was dark, but my powers gave me pretty decent vision, so I saw the end of the short path as we approached it. It was a door. A single door with gold filigree and detailed carvings across it. There was no handle or lock though, no visible way to try and pry it open.
“More blood,” Lotus called, unable to push forward because it was only wide enough for a single person in here. “From all three of you.”
Yeah, we already knew. Bleed for the cause. We got that memo from the cryptic gold book, thanks. Asher crossed his arms, and I could see the stubborn look on his face. He was going to refuse.
“They’ll kill our friends,” I reminded him.
Lotus chuckled. “Listen to your little mate, because we care nothing for mortals. I can flick my fingers and make them disappear.”
“Gods have rules,” Connor said suddenly. “You don’t just get to create anarchy like this.”
Lotus laughed again, but it was darker. “The rules are kind of on a … hiatus, you could say. The council is deciding what path to take, and they’re distracted.”
“What about the mother of all?” Connor pushed. “You all know she will return, and you can’t stand against her. She stopped you last time … what’s to say she won’t do it again.”
Lotus scoffed. “She won’t. She has not been seen in ten thousand years. I’m pretty sure she drained herself
completely to enact the spell over this land. She will never recover from that. Her worship is not strong enough these days. She all but killed herself to stop us.”
Basically, we were on our own.
Reaching down, I pulled a knife from my boot—I was no Girl Scout but I was prepared—and sliced it across my hand. I pressed that against the door, hoping Asher and Connor would follow.
Despite Connor arguing with Lotus just before, I still had the sneaking suspicion that there was a part of him that wanted to see what would happen with her plan. Lotus was his mother, after all, and he’d spent his entire life searching for her. Trying to free her.
To free Atlantis.
As he sliced his hand, I tried not to let those suspicions fester. I should be just as suspect about Asher, but I wasn’t, for many fucked-up reasons. Dude owned my heart, and I was hoping like hell my instincts couldn’t be that off.
When the three of us had our bloody hands pressed against the door—the two guys leaning over my ducked head—there was this moment when the world stopped. I was pretty sure I meant that literally, because everything froze and time had no meaning as the worlds realigned themselves. Earth was not the only world in this realm. There was Faerie, some demon purgatory, and now we were going to enter the underworld.
“Did you know that this entrance is called the Stairway to Hell?” Lotus said, and that was when I knew the pause in time was over. “It was rumored that most who enter do not return. The few who do speak of grotesque faces, hands grabbing at them, and a red splash of evil that coated their minds and turned them to mush.”
Was she for real? This was the worst timing for a story like that. We were literally standing in the damn stairway.
No one answered her, although I was pretty sure Sonaris made a rumbling pissed-off sound from the back of our group. Light spilled across the door and I yanked my hand back. Asher did the same, moving between me and the glow.
47
Now, if someone asked me to describe the doorway to the underworld, I probably would have mentioned fire and demons and maniacal laughter as a background soundtrack. The reality was far different from this. The door opened silently, and I could not tell where it went, but it seemed to slide into the wall and was gone.
Behind it was a long, very stark white hallway.
It was so white it was almost clinical. The only thing separating it from a hospital was the padded velvet material on the walls. “Swanky,” I said, half joking. It actually did look pretty fancy. “Looks like Draconis has been updating the décor.”
“Shut up, child,” Lotus snapped. “Draconis does not have that sort of power, not in this part of the underworld.”
“And this is where the Hellbringers are?” I asked, not really seeing god killers living here in the winner-of-OCD-overclean land.
“Yes,” Sonaris said. “And the Atlanteans.”
It was like the moment he said that, I could feel them——a collective energy that was somewhere in the underworld. My first instinct was to get to them; I needed to save my people. They had been damned because of the gods, because of me. I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.
“Let them move a little further in, then we make a break for it, back to the door,” Asher murmured. “We can lock them down here, since we’re the only ones that can access this realm.”
The moment he said that, though, more bodies crowded inside. Draconis, looking a little worse for wear, plus their other two god cronies. Galindra sailed in seconds later, gold sprinkling off her in wafts.
She looked mega pissed, and she was scarily scary.
“We’re trapped,” Connor said softly, and thankfully no one noticed us conspiring, too distracted by the newcomers. “Not to mention, I don’t think the doorway will stay locked this time. The mother of all did it, and we can’t replicate her power.”
There was so much I still didn’t understand. So. Freaking. Much. But that would be something to worry about tomorrow. Right now, I needed to get us out of here alive.
So, I did the only thing I could think of. Pushing past Lotus, I started sprinting along the long, white velvet hallway. It was so bright in here that my eyes ached, and I couldn’t see a single sign of what illuminated it. I was running in the opposite direction of the exit, but I had to get those gods moving away from there if we wanted to have a chance at escaping.
“Maddi!” Asher shouted, and I had zero doubts he would be right behind me.
I was fast, and no one had caught me by the time I reached the next door. I didn’t know if I needed all three of us to open it again, but I was going to see if I could do it alone.
Reaching for the blade, I sliced across my palm, slamming my hand against the door. It swung open with ease, and I wondered if I’d even needed the blood or not. There had been no resistance there. I ran through, no real plan in mind. I wasn’t sure if I’d run into the Hellbringers or the Atlanteans first. Were other gods trapped down here? I had no clue of anything. All I knew was that I had to keep moving and hoping a solution to our little god problem would present itself.
The white hallway continued past the last door, and then suddenly it ended. I skidded to a halt right on the edge, almost tumbling over. Chills raced down my spine as I teetered, nothing but rocky darkness below.
What was down there?
Was it the Hellbringers?
There was no way for me to know, except if I … jumped.
“Hold on, little goddess,” a smooth voice said as an arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me back. “You won’t survive that drop. Not yet. You’re still awakening your powers.”
Spinning, I shoved Sonaris away. “Don’t fucking touch me, numb nuts, or I’ll cut you.”
He smiled, perfect white teeth flashing. “Fate chose well for me.”
I looked for Asher, because the only way he hadn’t follow me was if he was detained or hurt. The thought sent panic racing through me, and even though I finally found him a minute later, fighting in the previous doorway, I didn’t feel any better about it.
He was taking on gods. He was taking on his mother. Shit!
“Asher!” I shouted, and his head jerked around, which allowed someone to get their hands around his throat.
My feet were moving, but Sonaris wasn’t going to let me go that easily. He reached for me again, and I slashed out with my power, hoping to knock him back over the edge.
He didn’t move. “You’re not ready for this,” he told me, staring closely. “I see it now. You’re not ready for your fate or for what will happen should the Atlanteans rise and the Hellbringers return.”
I swallowed roughly. “What will happen?”
Another chuckle. “Like I said, little goddess, you’re not ready. But one day, one day very soon, you will be.”
I wanted to push him harder, but my eyes were locked in horror on the dark red blood spattering across the white walls. Asher and Connor were just holding their own, fighting back to back, but the gods were hurting them.
“Help me,” I begged, willing to do anything to save them. “Please.”
Sonaris regarded me with a look I couldn’t interpret. “Why should I help you?”
I slapped him. It was a reflex and I greatly regretted it, because he was my only hope, but I was beyond reasoning. “You’re supposed to be my mate,” I screamed. “If you ever want me to stop fighting you over that, you better start proving that you fucking deserve me.”
I was lying. I would never in a billion years be his mate. I’d actually die first. But he didn’t need to know that. Asher and me living to fight another day was all I cared about.
For once, Sonaris wasn’t smiling, but he also didn’t hit me back. “How about we make a deal,” he said with soft menace.
Like I had a choice. “What deal?”
And his smile was back. “I’ll give you all a temporary reprieve by locking the gods in here. It won’t hold them forever, but it’s the best I can offer. It will give you time.”
�
�Okay,” I pushed, my voice breathless. “And what do you want in return?”
“A favor,” he said simply. “A simple favor that I can call on you anytime for.”
This was a terrible idea. I knew that better than I knew anything. But again, I had no choice. Live to fight another day.
“If you promise that Asher, me, and Connor, plus all of my friends and family remain safe from you, and that this favor will not be to hurt anyone I love, then it’s a deal,” I said.
Annoyance creased his brow for a minute before his face smoothed out. “Deal.”
The lights flickered out, and the hallway went dark.
The moment the lights vanished, the strongest sense of déjà vu hit me. This darkness … all-encompassing. This was the darkness from the ocean room at the Academy. This was the same energy. The same white-blond hair…
Sonaris. He’d been following me back then. And the text messages … they had to be from him as well. I have a fucking stalker. It was too late to worry about it; the deal was made. The all-encompassing darkness remained, and since I had no idea what I was supposed to do, I stayed silent and still. There were shouts and thuds from a few feet away, and I wondered what was happening. Panic filtered into my tense muscles, and the fact that I didn’t know if Asher and Connor were okay...
Hellbringer…
A whispered word distracted me.
At first I thought I’d imagined it, but then it came again, tingling across my senses and leaving an ashy taste on my tongue. The flames I’d been searching for, they were finally here, in my chest and raging across the dark world.
Hellbringers.
Hellbringers of light.
I temporarily forgot that I had been standing right near a massive cliff face, and as I moved closer to the whispers, I stepped out into the nothing, and then I was falling. Something strong grabbed me in the dark. Arms wrapped around me, and we swung out and slammed into a wall. My head cracked into stone; I tasted blood, my ears ringing as I tried to fight against unconsciousness.
Master.
The same whisper, and as much as I tried to fight against it, to go to the whispers, the pain in my head became too much and I blacked out. Later I would wonder if it was the fear that caused me to release my hold on consciousness, or if it was the head injury, but either way, I completely missed the details of what Sonaris did to uphold his end of our bargain.
