Hidden Goddess (Shadows of the Immortals Book 4) Page 17

  We entered the empty kitchen, then started up the main staircase to the bedroom level. Snarling from above told us we were headed in the right direction. A gun shot rang out and I quickened my pace, taking the stairs two at a time. By the time we reached the upper level, silence had fallen again.

  I held my bow at the ready, an arrow nocked and ready to fly. Fortunately, I recognised Hades in time as he came out of one of the bedrooms, and didn’t put an arrow through him.

  He raised an eyebrow as I lowered the bow. “Please don’t make a pincushion of me.”

  “I heard gunfire.” I said. “Where’s Cerberus?”

  “He’s about somewhere. Don’t worry about him—I think our work here is done.”

  “You mean you killed them all?” Lucas asked, his face pale. As a bouncer, he was probably used to casual violence, but this took it to a whole new level.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to invite them to afternoon tea,” Hades replied caustically. “They are murderers, every one of them, whether it was their hand that held the knife or not. I see no reason to show a mercy they refused to extend themselves.”

  There must have been a dozen people in the house. He’d made short work of them. I shivered. I’d seen him kill once before, and was quite glad I’d missed the spectacle this time round. There was no mistaking that he was Lord of the Underworld when you saw him in action. He was creepy as hell.

  Cerberus trotted down the corridor towards us, his tail held at a jaunty angle, his jaws dripping gore. He was another one whose true nature was easy to forget. He might beg me to throw him sticks, and lick my face endearingly, but he was a hellhound, a pure killing machine. He stopped beside Hades, panting and wagging.

  Hades reached up and scratched behind an ear, and the eyes on that head closed in ecstasy. “You’re a good boy.”

  Cerberus nudged his master fondly, making Hades stagger to one side.

  “It’s a shame Apollo’s not here. We could use a good fireball now.”

  “Why?” asked Lucas. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

  “These ones are, yes, but the filth multiply like a plague. There’s no reason to leave the rest of them an asset such as this house. This is war. We kill them, we destroy their property, we sow their fields with salt.” He bared his teeth in a savage grin quite at odds with the face of the kindly older man he wore. Again, I wondered what he really looked like. Searching my memory—such as it was—provided no clue. I was Artemis and I still knew nothing, goddammit. He gestured towards the stairs. “Shall we?”

  We followed him down the stairs and out onto the floodlit terrace. Everything was quiet. The house was far enough from its neighbours that they might not have noticed the gunshots and the screams—they might not even have been home. Many of the homes had seemed unoccupied when we scouted out the area. The tennis court was championship-ready. Beyond the fake green of the court, the natural green of carefully manicured lawn stretched down to the jetty, where the river lapped silently, black in the night. It reminded me horribly of the black waters of the Styx, where Jake was imprisoned. There was no sign now of Mac’s boat, or any others, for that matter.

  Hades led us onto the grass, eyeing the water thoughtfully. “Even a watershaper would come in handy. We could flood the whole area.”

  “We met one earlier,” Syl volunteered, giving me an anxious look. She knew it was odd that I was so quiet. “A cute guy half-covered in tattoos.”

  Lucas cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Not that I was looking,” she added hastily.

  “Oh?” Hades prompted.

  She rushed on, trying to fill the silence. “Yeah, he picked us up in his boat earlier. We had some trouble with the local Merrow.”

  “What kind of tattoos? Did they look Celtic? Knots and such?”

  She looked surprised. “Yes. Why? Do you know him?”

  “I think I might,” he said, and left it at that. Bloody typical. He’d never met a secret yet that he didn’t want to keep. He turned his back on the river, then, and contemplated the house. It was huge; three storeys of wealth on display, all glass and steel and concrete. “This should be a safe distance. Let’s see what we can do.”

  A safe distance for what? We stood next to the tennis court, the steps to the first terrace a hundred metres or more away. He lifted his arms, as if he were about to conduct an invisible orchestra. A darkness like smoke issued from his fingertips and coiled about him. Lucas and Syl took a hasty step back, giving him room to work as the black smoke poured forth. It writhed through the air, towards the house.

  A groaning sound was the first warning as the black smoke seeped inside through open doors and window cracks. Some of it appeared to sink right through the solid walls as if they weren’t there. I could have sworn the house trembled. Then a tile fell from the roof, smashing to pieces on the flagstones of the terrace below. Another followed, and then another in quick succession.

  In a rush, the whole roof crumbled, subsiding inwards almost gracefully. The house collapsed in on itself in slow motion, black smoke swirling around it, like vultures circling a dying animal. After the first couple of roof tiles, nothing flew off or crashed to the ground. First the roof disappeared, then the upper windows and balcony doors shattered, leaving great gaping holes for the black smoke to whirl into. Then the balconies themselves disappeared into those black holes, morsels to feed hungry mouths. Bricks toppled inward like dominoes, one after another, an endless rain of bricks peeling away from the walls. With a great crash, the swimming pool suddenly gave way and water poured down the broken walls like tears. The noise was tremendous. The house just kept shrinking, until the walls were only the height of a man, and finally, even that was gone, sunk into a dark hole.

  And then, with a great grinding sound, the ground closed up, leaving bare earth and mud and the odd chunk of concrete as the only evidence that there’d ever been a house there.

  “What did you do?” Lucas breathed.

  “I opened a passage to the underworld under the foundations,” Hades replied, lowering his arms at last. “Enough to let the house fall through partway … not enough to actually end up with it on my front lawn.”

  “Wow.” The big werewolf shook his head, still dumbfounded. “You are a bad enemy to have.”

  “Indeed, Mr Kincaid, indeed.” With a grinding of rocks, another hole opened in the grass at our feet. Hades smiled around at us. “Shall we?”

  Syl regarded the hole nervously. “Not this again! We could call Winston for a ride back to Berkley’s Bay instead, you know.”

  Hades shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be going this way, and you’re welcome to refresh yourself at my home if you wish.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said. “Jake’s down there.”

  Hades arched an eyebrow at me. “He is?”

  “Oh,” Syl said, as if she’d forgotten about him in all the drama.

  “You don’t have to come,” I told her. They’d have to get back to the temple in the heart of Brenvale, but Winston could pick them up from there if they didn’t want to brave the underworld.

  “No, I’ll come,” she said. “Just do me a favour.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t scream all the way down this time.”

  20

  The plummet down the long dark hole to Hell was just as terrifying as I remembered, but we were soon standing on the flagstones outside Hades’ palace. Lucas said nothing, but his eyes were wide as he looked around.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a nice, hot bath right now,” Hades said.

  “Jake first,” I said.

  Hades’ brow creased in confusion. “Where is he? Why is he down here?”

  “Because that bitch Styx trapped him.” Quickly, I explained the circumstances of our bargain with Styx, and how she’d doublecrossed us by wording it in such a way that Jake would never be free to leave her. “Apollo said even he wasn’t powerful enough to force her to give Jake up. Only you or Zeus could.”
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br />   Hades snorted. “It must have nearly killed Apollo to admit that he wasn’t powerful enough for something. But I suppose I should be grateful that you came looking for me, instead of haring off after Zeus. Nice to be considered useful.”

  I didn’t tell him that we’d had quite a dust-up about that, with Apollo all for leaving his uncle to rot while he focused on the search for his father. Our father. Shit. I didn’t care anymore; I just wanted Jake freed. We were so close.

  Hades cast a longing look at the great doors of his palace. “I imagine you don’t want to wait until I’ve had a chance to clean up?”

  “You imagine right. Let’s go.”

  Hades took the path that led to the wharf, where the newly deceased alighted from Charon’s ferry to begin their afterlife. The familiar path led us through the mists across the Plains of Asphodel. Cerberus gambolled alongside us, snapping at shredded souls as they drifted past. I’d made this trip several times previously, back before I’d discovered that I wasn’t who I thought I was and that Hades had been lying to me the whole time. My current mood was more in tune with the swirling grey mists and less with the sweet white flowers waving among the tall grasses.

  Syl and Lucas trailed behind us, hand in hand amongst the flowers, so I walked next to Hades, but there was no easy banter between us as there might have been before. I was still stewing, and I meant to have it out with him just as soon as Jake was free.

  Eventually, we reached the wharf and the stony shore of the River Styx. Its dark waters were whipped into peaks by an invisible wind. Soon, no doubt, the ferry would be arriving, and there would be a few familiar faces on board—more shadow shapers who’d learned that it didn’t pay to take on the ancient gods. Something stirred within me at the thought: a fierce pride and an anger that went bone-deep, cold and implacable. They would all pay in the end for what they’d done.

  “Styx, show yourself,” Hades called.

  She didn’t make her usual instant jack-in-the-box appearance. Maybe she was too busy with Jake. I ground my teeth at the thought, and tried to banish the unwelcome imagery from my mind.

  “Will she refuse to come?” Syl asked, after several minutes had passed with no response.

  Hades shoved his hands in his pockets; he seemed perfectly relaxed. “The underworld is wide and the river long, so she may be some time, but she won’t defy me. I am the Lord of the Underworld and everything in it.”

  Fine. Must be nice to be so certain of your identity. I settled in to wait, perched on a familiar grey rock. It was here I’d waited impatiently for the ferry all those times, hoping to see Mrs Emery arriving in the afterlife. No such luck, of course. Maybe we should have waited until she arrived before we left the house in Brenvale. We’d missed a chance to finish her off. I’d been so focused on Jake that it hadn’t occurred to me until now. Too late, unfortunately. Knowing her, though, she would have somehow got wind of what had happened and never shown up. She was as hard to kill as a cockroach.

  Finally, the water swirled, and Styx appeared. Her black gaze swept over us all, lingering on Lucas, before settling on Hades. She smiled, showing her vicious, shark-like teeth. “If I’d known there was a party I would have got dressed up.”

  Her shoulders were bare except for her black hair. I didn’t need to see the rest of her to know she was naked under the ebony water. Black as her soul—if she even had one—the river itself was all the clothing she needed.

  Hades sighed. “Styx, I’m tired and cranky and in dire need of a bath. I’m told you have a guest—a young fireshaper. He’s a friend of mine and I want him returned.”

  Styx’s face rearranged itself into an expression of butter-wouldn’t-melt innocence. “Of course, my lord. And so he will be, when our bargain is fulfilled.”

  “And when will that be, you lying skank?” I burst out. “When Hell freezes over?”

  She shot me a filthy look, then attempted to smooth her sharp features into a smile as she turned back to Hades. If that was meant to be ingratiating, there were entirely too many pointy teeth involved to achieve the desired effect. “I don’t know what this woman has told you, my lord, but the fireshaper and I made a deal, and he—”

  “Styx.” Hades didn’t raise his voice, but the nymph stopped mid-sentence. “Enough. Fireshaper, now. My bath is calling.”

  She hesitated, but Hades’ don’t mess with me expression meant business. Her smooth shoulders slumped, and she bowed her head. “Of course, my lord. I’ll get him.”

  “And, Styx.” His voice stopped her as she turned away. “I want him unharmed.”

  She didn’t reply, merely sank out of sight, her dark hair fanning out on the surface of the water before slipping soundlessly beneath it. I stared at the ripples where she had disappeared in an agony of impatience. Was he hurt? Would she truly release him? It felt like an eternity before a dark head broke the surface, but this time, it wasn’t the hated nymph.

  “Jake,” I breathed. I felt like a child on her birthday, with the one present she’d longed for finally within reach. He smiled up at me and it was as if the sun had just come out, melting the icy fear around my heart in a hot flush of happiness.

  He swam, and then waded, ashore. The black water ran off him like mercury, as if repelled. When he stepped onto the river bank, his clothes were completely dry.

  “Are you well?” Hades asked, running an assessing gaze over my favourite fireshaper. He looked well. More than well—he looked good enough to eat, in the same dark pants and form-fitting T-shirt he’d been wearing when I’d last seen him. Then, he’d been dying of the curse Styx had placed on him. Now, he looked to be back to full strength. I’d forgotten how tall he was, somehow, and how alive. His presence was so compelling I couldn’t drag my eyes away. “Somehow I’d expected more of an argument from Styx.”

  He flashed a quick grin. “Perhaps I didn’t live up to expectations. She said I was free to go.”

  “And so you are,” Hades said. “Please accept my apologies for your prolonged captivity.” He gazed out across the dark water, but there was no further sign of the nymph. “Styx and I will discuss this more fully later.” The look on his face promised that Styx wouldn’t enjoy that discussion. I couldn’t say that I was heartbroken at the thought.

  “Welcome back,” Syl said, giving him a hug, and then she drew Lucas forward. “This is Lucas, Joe’s brother.”

  Lucas and Jake shook hands, and then Jake turned to me. “You came back for me.”

  “Of course,” I said, unable to express the joy that was singing in my heart. He looked just as I remembered, only better. More vibrant, more warmth in his eyes when he smiled at me, more laughter in his face. Just more. I wanted to hold him tight and never let go. “You promised to take me on a date.”

  He laughed, and drew me into his arms, turning my face up to his with a hand under my chin. His lips descended on mine and my eyes closed. Surely there was no better feeling in all the world than the gentle pressure of his mouth on mine. I wanted it to go on forever, and I pressed myself against him, urging him to deepen the kiss. I almost dropped my bow on the rocky ground and I didn’t care. Happiness bubbled up inside me.

  “Far be it from me to interrupt your reunion,” Hades said, “but perhaps you could continue it back at the palace, rather than on this draughty riverbank. I know I could do with a bath, and perhaps Jake would like one, too.”

  “Hell, no.” Jake shuddered. “No more water for me!”

  Everyone laughed. Jake took my hand in his and we followed Hades back to the palace. I couldn’t help sneaking sidelong glances at him. He seemed eager to move away from the black river—and who could blame him?—but not so traumatised by the experience as I’d feared.

  “Did she … treat you all right?” I asked, when he caught me looking at him. I couldn’t quite find a way to ask what I really wanted to know. His quip about not living up to her expectations had me intrigued.

  He shrugged. “Can’t really complain. I’m sure she’s bor
ed of chess by now.”

  “Chess?” Hades cast a curious glance over his shoulder. “That’s not how she usually passes the time with her guests.”

  “She trapped me by insisting on the letter of our agreement—that I was to stay with her until sunrise—rather than the spirit.” Jake smiled. “She was particularly unimpressed when I pulled the same trick.”

  “What do you mean?” Hades asked, as I cast my mind back, trying to remember the exact wording of the bargain.

  “I pointed out that she had insinuated plenty, but all I had actually agreed to was spending some ‘quality time’ with her.” His smile broadened. “We played a lot of chess, and I was a most attentive dinner companion, but the magic of the bargain wouldn’t let her force me into anything more.”

  Hades laughed. “Well done. You beat her at her own game.”

  “She was probably glad to see the back of me. After we’d established that she couldn’t get me drunk enough to give in and sleep with her, she pretty much lost interest in having me there.”

  I smiled up at him, bursting with a fierce pride. She’d got exactly what she deserved, and no more. I was more relieved than I could say; I’d been dreading what kind of damage being the plaything of a dark goddess might have done my bright fireshaper. “That was smart.”

  “I occasionally have good ideas,” he said mildly.

  The rest of the walk passed in silence. Now that the excitement was over, I was practically dead on my feet, and I was pretty sure the others were, too, even Hades. Walking with my hand in Jake’s through the mists of the underworld felt like a dream, surreal but beautiful, and I was content to live in the moment forever. But before I knew it, the palace loomed out of the mist. Hades must have manipulated the distance in his hurry to get back, because it felt as though no time at all had passed.