Prophecy of the Setting Sunrise (Oracle of Delphi #2), page 27
She turned away and started walking again.
Chloe stepped forward to follow.
She heard the flapping of wings and a screech right before she was slammed against the huge boulder next to her.
One moment, a hideous flying goblin with scaly gray skin and red eyes had her pinned against the boulder; the next, a woman was standing before her with a hand clamped around her throat.
"Pythia," she sneered, "you are most welcome here."
The other two black goblins were now women, too. Pretty ones, with hair that fell in black waves. They wore sheer black robes that barely covered anything and were barefoot. They framed Isolde on both sides, making it clear the demi-ghostess wasn't going anywhere.
"You will suffer for bringing the mortal to our realm, dead one," one sneered. "Maybe you can take over for Sisyphus and push a boulder up an endless hill for a few centuries. That would teach you a lesson."
"I did not help her," Isolde said. "I swear to Styx. The Labyrinth brought her here."
"It does not matter," the woman in Chloe's face leered. Her hair was long and gray, despite her youthful appearance. "My lord Hades is most anxious to meet you."
"Lucky me," Chloe choked out.
The woman chuckled. "Humor in the face of death. I like you." The woman loosened her grip slightly. "I am Alecto, and these are my sisters, Megaira and Tisiphone. We are the Furies, and we're taking you to see our lord right now."
The Fury jerked her away from the boulder and threw her into Isolde. From there, Tisiphone pushed them both back in the direction they had come. Away from freedom. Away from Benjy. Back to the wails. Back to the dead.
The other side of the pass led them to a bridge that stretched out over a never-ending river of black. The Furies pushed them onto it and made them keep up the pace even though the bridge swung like a pendulum, threatening to throw them over with every step.
"You swore by the River Styx that you did not help the mortal into the Underworld, dead one," Megaira sneered, jerking Isolde by the hair. "Would you swear it again now, even as you walk over its very waters?" Isolde didn't answer and the Furies laughed, obviously taking her silence as an admission of guilt.
Chloe stared down into the ebony colored waters of the River Styx, the river every immortal swore by. It was nothing like any river she had ever seen. It was inky and black and flowed like tar. Thick and gloppy. It splashed onto its stone shores and burned through the rocks like acid. Her skin felt scorched just looking at it.
Staring at it, the top of a head and a pair of eyes rose to the surface of the black river and, after the inky liquid had drained from their eyes, began watching them. Chloe looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing the same thing she was.
They were.
I know your heart, Pythia, a female's raspy voice penetrated her mind. I know your heart. I know your heart. I know your he—
She slammed the door to her mind closed, locked it, and put up a 'Trespassers will be shot' sign.
"Styx is a tormentor," Alecto sneered. "Keep your oaths sworn against her and she cannot get to you. Betray your vows and pay a terrible price."
Her breath hitched as Alecto pushed her forward. She had sworn an oath against her? The being whose eyes wouldn't stop watching her? The one whom she could still feel trying to penetrate her mental barrier? Now she understood why Strafford never let her swear against Styx. Her wrath punishing broken vows would be brutal, and now she knew for sure that she could never tell Strafford about Isolde. Ever.
What have I done?
"They're taking us to the north entrance of the Black Fortress, Hades' Castle," Isolde whispered.
"Silence yourself, dead one," Alecto hissed over her shoulder, "before I do it for you."
Chloe questioned Isolde with frightened eyes. What was at the north entrance that caused Isolde to look like that? She soon found out.
They arrived at the towering gate of the Black Fortress within a short time of clearing the bridge. Chloe stared up at the gate, eyes wide, trying to determine if it really was made out of human bones and skulls or if she was just hallucinating. She quickly concluded it was the former.
She heard the growl before she saw the source of it. The black granite floor shook beneath their feet. She looked through the bones of the gate, wanting desperately to see the creature before it saw her. But all she saw were mountains of black and the threatening glow of the Black Fortress miles in the background. One of the mountains moved, but in very little time she saw she was mistaken. It was not a mountain at all, but a monster…a giant monster with large paws…snarling teeth…and yellow eyes that snapped open at their approach.
It growled again.
"It is only I, Alecto," the Fury said calmly, waving her hand at the gate. It started to slowly swing open. "Calm yourself, Cerberus. I have business with his lordship."
The monster growled again and stood. It was at least twenty feet tall with fur as black as the granite. It stepped forward and that's when Chloe saw the monster in its entirety. She tried really hard not to scream.
The monster had three heads—three snarling, slobbering heads with wide snouts and black noses. It looked like a dog that had overdosed on steroids. A few tons of them. All three sets of yellow eyes landed on Chloe and the overgrown dog and all three of its heads stepped forward again. This time the heads barked and licked their lips. The entire cavern rumbled and chunks of granite and dust fell around them.
Images flashed in her head. Cerberus, Chloe thought, the three-headed guard dog of Hades. To confirm this, Cerberus barked and more granite crumbled around her.
"Now, now Russy," a low, cold voice said from high above them. "You'll spoil your appetite eating your dessert before dinner."
The dog immediately calmed down and sat back on its hunches. One of the heads whined a little, but it didn't come any closer.
"Down, boy," the voice said.
Its yellow eyes still on Chloe, Cerberus lowered its heads to the ground and arranged its enormous body behind them.
Chloe gasped in absolute horror.
Wedged comfortably between the large, floppy ears of the middle head sat a very familiar teenaged boy. On the last day she had spent as Chloe Clever, normal schizophrenic teenager, she had hallucinated him, causing her to hurt a fellow student at school. He had said that one day she would seek him out and offer her services to him. She gulped and wondered if that one day had arrived.
He was as pale as she remembered, with dark eyes and greasy black hair. He wore a black leather jacket and tattered jeans and his heavy boots were propped up on one of the dog's ears. But it was the teardrops tattooed under his eyes that dragged him out of her memory.
He was a god.
He was Hades.
XXVIII. CHLOE
Hades' head swiveled toward her as if he had heard her thoughts. The first god she had ever "met" grinned like a jack-o-lantern.
"Welcome to the Underworld, Pythia," he said. "It's very good to see you again. Hope you like it here. You'll be staying a while. Like, forever." He tossed up a large bone and Cerberus's right head reared and snatched it out of the air.
"My lord," Alecto said, stepping forward, "I thought I was to bring the intruder before you in the Fortress throne room. That is what you ordered of me."
"Can't the Lord of the Underworld change his mind, Alecto?" he scratched the ears of the head he sat on and Cerberus whined with pleasure. Its huge tail, which sounded more like a bullwhip, thrashed back and forth with joy.
The Fury stepped back. "I apologize, my lord. Of course you can."
"Sometimes you are efficient to a fault, Alecto. I will take control of the trespasser from here. Take your sisters and go check on my wife. Persephone has been so depressed lately and you know that since she despises me, I'm no comfort to her."
"I do not see how we would be a comfort to our lady if you are not, my lord."
"Ah, your flattery never gets old. Go now. Make sure the Queen is entertained. Return to the land of the living, find something not already dead and kill it if you must. Whatever it takes."
The Furies bowed low to their master and with the whirring of freezing wind blowing around them, they turned back into the flying goblins and shot off into the mountains. The flapping of their wings faded into silence.
"Now," said Hades. "It's all even."
Chloe frowned, not understanding.
Hades smiled and gestured at them. "There are three of us." He patted Cerberus. "And there are three heads. Climb aboard."
Not seeing where they had any room to negotiate, the pair did as they were told. Isolde didn't speak and neither did she. Cerberus growled at her as she walked by and the head Hades sat on tried to lick her.
"Russy! Not yet!" Hades reprimanded his pet. "Now, take us to the Fortress." Cerberus whined as he got to his feet. "Yes, yes, I willed the gate locked. It should be fine until your return. Charon isn't due with another shipment of dead for a time." All of Cerberus's heads barked happily now that they were assured they would be back in time to turn the next round of trespassers into dog chow.
She watched the gate of bones close behind her, fearing she would never see the other side of it again. Hades had declared she wasn't leaving and Isolde's stoic state wasn't giving her much hope that escape would be possible.
She wondered if Strafford even had a clue where she had gone. She knew for a fact that if he had had any idea she was in the Underworld sitting on one of Cerberus's heads next to his dead twin sister, he would have freaked out. She hoped he was freaking out and trying to find a way to get to her. But that didn't stop her from working out her own escape plan in her head. Just in case her hero didn't show up to save her, she had every intention of saving herself.
It was miles to the castle from the gate, but Cerberus ate up the distance in only a few minutes. Lowering his heads to the ground in front of the entrance, they were allowed to slide off. Cerberus nudged her with a nose as she passed, sniffing her. Hades shot him a deadly look and with a whimper, Cerberus rose and bounded away toward the gate, the ground rumbling beneath him.
"This is why I can never have company," Hades said. "My dog has no manners and feels he should be free to feast on my guests at his choosing." With that, he led the way into the castle. She reached for Isolde's freezing cold hand. The girl hesitated, then gave it to her. Now linked, they followed Hades.
There was absolutely nothing going on in the Black Fortress, but that was why it was so creepy. There were no adornments—no pictures, no paintings, no statues, no life. Nothing. Just black walls and floors of what appeared to be a thick, reflective plexiglass material.
Her reflection caught her eye and she realized why the Fortress needed no decoration. She saw herself ragged and dirty and in chains, dragging a bad leg behind her. The patches of hair left on her head were tangled and knotted and her cheeks were sunken in like all of her teeth had been yanked out. In front of her, Hades appeared in his true form. Tall and majestic, handsome even, wearing a black toga and a crown of iron thorns. Isolde didn't have a reflection at all. Chloe faced forward and did not look at the ground again.
They approached a set of giant steel doors at the end of the corridor and as they swung open, a trio of zombie guards, with iron cages clamped around their heads, stomped out and moved in on Isolde. They chained her around the neck and started to drag her away.
"No!" Chloe screeched, refusing to let go of her hand. Isolde grunted and reached for her with the other.
Hades laughed and with the flick of a finger, their hold was broken. The hall filled with black smoke and the guards dragged Isolde into it. A second later, the smoke vanished, taking them with it.
"Where did they take her?" she shouted at Hades.
He rolled his eyes and proceeded into the chamber. Some kind of netherworld voodoo pulled her inside after him and the steel doors slammed shut behind her.
"Sit, Pythia," Hades demanded, and her body was coerced into a chair in front of a blazing fireplace. Her arms were forced behind her back and chain cuffs connected to the floor, locked around her wrists.
"What is this, your torture chamber?" she spit, yanking on the chains.
"Sometimes," Hades replied, summoning an owl from its perch near a high window that was the only break among the hundreds and hundreds of skulls that lined the walls.
The white owl swooped down and landed on a bird stand closer to Hades. The god of the Underworld grinned heinously, reached into his pocket and pulled out a dead rat. He dangled the rodent by the tail in front of the owl. The bird snatched it out of his grasp in one swift strike and swallowed it whole.
Disgusted, she turned her head, only to find herself looking at a giant mountain of bones piled up in the corner of the chamber. It wasn't the bones that got her. It was the flesh and cartilage still attached to them that did. She gagged.
"Hulu likes a bit of meat on her bones," Hades said, watching her. "Preferably rotten." He dropped into a high-backed chair and tossed his legs over the arm.
She saw his motorcycle helmet sitting on the lacquered table beside him. She remembered he'd had it with him the first time she had met him. Staring at it now, she knew it wasn't what she thought it was. Something was off about it. Maybe it was her mind playing tricks again, but the helmet kept fading out, like it was trying to turn into something else but couldn't quite do it.
That is the Helm of Darkness, Trophy said to her. It gives Hades the power of invisibility.
That explained so much. Hades had been wearing the helmet that day, in his other form. That's why no one else had seen him.
"Do you know why my wife is so much darker than usual?"
She glared at Hades. "Because she is miserable down here with you and can't wait until she can go back to the heavens to be with her mother."
Hades laughed. "That is part of the reason, I'm sure. This year, I forbade her to leave my side, even to visit with her mother, which has been the agreement for centuries. So yes, I'm sure that is a reason."
"And the other reason?"
Hades fed another pocket rat to Hulu. "Because her lover Adonis crossed over and is lost to her forever."
Chloe sucked in a breath. "Dropper is gone?"
"Do you honestly still call him that? His name was Adonis, and yes, he is gone from Oblivion and will never live again. Not that he was much alive anyway. He was nothing more than a corpse. I tried to tell her so, even before she defied me and left the Underworld to bring him back here..." He frowned. "But I have made sure she will not leave here against my wishes again."
"Did he go to Tartarus?" Chloe asked, horrified. She had liked Dropper, even if the others hadn't, and would have never wished this fate for him.
"Tartarus? The boy may have been an annoyance to me, but he certainly did nothing to warrant being sent there. The judges granted him entrance into the Elysium Fields, at my behest. Banishing Adonis to Tartarus for no reason would have only made my Persephone hate me more and I do not wish that." For a moment, Hades almost looked as if he cared. He coaxed Hulu away and she flew back up to her perch next to the window.
"Does he have a place in the Regalis Stella again, since his soul made it into the Elysium Fields?"
Hades shrugged. "If Aphrodite wished it, it is done. Constellations are eternal memories and I am sure she would want him remembered. I mean, look at all of the trouble she went through to ensure his soul was freed from Persephone. She obviously cared for the stupid boy. To be honest, I'm glad he's gone. Their feud had gone on long enough."
"I'm just glad he's free."
"Indeed, Pythia."
She swallowed, thinking that since Hades was in such a conversational mood she should keep him talking. "You said that constellations are eternal memories. Is this the same for the Zodiacs?"
Hades smiled, his black eyes gleaming. "Why do you ask about the Zodiacs, Oracle?"
She didn't avert her eyes like she wanted to. "I just know that they represent the movement of time. Without them, time stands still. At least in the celestial sense."
"Plan on returning the Zodiacs to the Regalis Stella?"
She stuck out her chin. "It's what I'm destined to do."
"Are you positive? What if you're wrong about that?"
"Then I will do it anyway."
Hades leapt to his feet. He walked around, arranging the many morbid knickknacks in the room, including the two human eyeballs sitting on his fireplace, veins attached. He turned them so the eyes stared at her, then stepped back to check out his work. She swallowed the bile in her throat, blocked out the eyes, and waited for him to speak.
"The Zodiacs are not just memories," he said a moment later, happy with the placement of the eyeballs. "They are as you said, the representation of time. But they weren't always. They were prizes at first, trophies of Olympian power. The power to memorialize any being, any creature, in the stars. And that is a great power indeed, one that Chaos sought to put in check."
She cocked her head, not getting it. Hades rolled his eyes. "You are supposed to be intelligent, Pythia. The Zodiacs are leashes around the gods' necks. And Chaos is their walker. If they break their leash, Myth is the one that will be bitten."
She got it now. "The Zodiacs are already falling."
"But if they are put back, then all will be well again. Chaos will not rise and the Olympians will not fall." He turned on her then. "Which is why I cannot let you return to the land of the living."
She gaped at him. "You want the Olympians to be destroyed?"
"Why wouldn't I? When my brothers Zeus and Poseidon tricked me and cast me beneath the Earth to rule the Underworld, I realized I meant nothing to them. To them, I am even beneath mortals who walk the ground above me. I do not bear the title Olympian, therefore I do not care what happens to them. Or their world. Centuries ago, they made an enemy out of me." He grinned. "Now I will make dust out of them."
"But you can't! This isn't just about the gods! What about the heroes and their families? You can't possibly think Earth won't be destroyed along with Myth!"
