Stygian

  Savitar laughed, then sobered. “Tell me honestly, Urian. What do you think of him?”

  “I like him, and it’s not because I idolized him as a military hero when I was a kid. He was a fierce old fart to me then. Kind of like you.”

  Savitar arched a censuring brow, then smiled and hehed.

  “You know me, Chthonian; I don’t play well with others, and I basically hate everyone, all the time, but I would actually cross the street to have a conversation with him.… In fact, I have.”

  “Coming from you, that’s the highest endorsement I can think of.”

  Urian shrugged. “I just don’t understand their mutual hatred. I mean, I get not liking your brother. Had more than my fair share I couldn’t stand to be around for more than five minutes. But I didn’t really hate them. We were just different. While I might deck one from time to time, I never really tried to kill one.”

  Savitar glanced around at the sparse, humble furnishings. “I understand why Acheron hates him, and it is justified. Believe me. Apollymi herself has told me about their bad blood, and I know she’s not lying. I’m just having a hard time reconciling the stories I’ve been told with the man who lives in this apartment. Of course, eleven thousand years can change someone.… I don’t know.” Savitar sighed. “Keep an eye on him and let me know if he slips back into another coma.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Urian started to leave, too, but given how distraught Styxx had been, he didn’t want Styxx to be alone when he woke up.

  That was the last thing anyone this lonely needed.

  Besides, it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go or anyone else waiting for him.

  Loneliness he got as much as he understood wanting to pound on a brother who wore out the nerves. And having been left alone to struggle to pull his life back together twice already, he wouldn’t do that to Styxx. So he glanced around for something to occupy himself with.

  His gaze fell to a sketchbook on the end table. Curious about what it contained, he walked over to it and flipped it open.

  His jaw went slack at what he found inside. The majority of the book was filled with drawings of an absolutely stunning woman who must be the Bethany Styxx talked about. Damn, no wonder he was obsessed. She was gorgeous.

  Some of the pictures of her were so real, she looked like she could step off the page and touch him. But the ones that were truly haunting were drawings of Styxx and her. He’d perfectly captured their smiles and laughs, but most of all he caught the anguish and love on his own features as he held her.

  There were also pictures of Bethany with a son, and of the boy by himself. A boy Styxx had never met. It wrung Urian’s heart. Because these weren’t just images of memories.

  These were memories Styxx had wanted to have. They were longings of a broken promise the gods had stolen from him.

  There was nothing crueler than to steal someone’s dreams. To take a future. And he should know. It was what he grappled with every day of his own life.

  His tomorrow had become his yesterday. There were no more left to look forward to. And that was the moment when you knew you wanted to die and you began every day with a breath and a whisper that searched for a reason to get up out of bed, because really? What was the use?

  Life just became rote.

  In that, he and Styxx were bonded brothers.

  The one difference being that Styxx was talented in a way Urian would never have guessed.

  And what he found most telling about his friend was that while a couple of Bethany’s drawings showed her seductively clad in Greek gowns, none of them were of her naked. Even though Styxx had never intended for anyone else to see this, he’d kept his wife’s honor sacred and respected her. That said it all about how much he loved that woman.

  Urian stopped on the next page as he found the image of a toddler boy dressed in a hoplite’s Corinthian helm. It was hilarious and adorable. Beside it, Styxx had written the name “Galen” in Greek.… He also had a few of an adult Galen, one of a woman named Tig, a horse and a dog, and a few scenes from what must have been his native Didymos.

  The pages went on and on. Including a large number of Acheron in his modern Goth wear and long black hair, as well as pictures of them together with a bolt of lightning coming down between them.

  When Urian turned to the next page, his heart stopped as he stared at a face he’d never thought to see again.

  It staggered him so much that he had to sit.

  Styxx had drawn him with Phoebe. Even though the bastard had never seen her, he’d penned her perfect likeness from Urian’s descriptions. It was absolutely eerie that he could do that, and it showed him just how true to life his drawings of Bethany must be if Styxx could do this just based off words.

  Incredible.

  And in that moment, the pain that rifled through Urian was crippling. It merged with the same agony and madness that had driven Styxx to fill this book with image after image of his wife and longed-for son. Since Styxx had nothing left of her to hold on to, he must have created this. And it was like looking into Styxx’s soul.

  Unable to cope with it, Urian set the sketchbook back right where he’d found it. Honestly, what disturbed him the most about that book …

  He saw his own future. Phoebe had only been dead a handful of years and it still burned inside him like a raging furnace. For Styxx, it’d been eleven thousand years and he still ached as much now as he had then.

  That did not bode well for Urian. Because he knew the other truth.

  He still missed Xyn. Just as much today as he had the day she’d vanished.

  That pain never ended and he knew it.

  Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Styxx. They were bound by similar tragedies and had been born virtual contemporaries in ancient Greece. Well, not quite. Styxx was the same age as his father, but close enough.

  Urian glanced back at the sketchbook and cringed. So that’s what I have to look forward to. Bitter insanity.

  So awesome.

  January 20, 2009

  Just after midnight, Styxx woke up covered in sweat. Urian wanted to weep for him. He was so cold, his teeth chattered. Feeling for his grieving friend, he pulled another blanket over Styxx’s shoulder, then stepped into his field of vision. “How are you?”

  His expression said clearly that he was broken.

  When he didn’t respond, Urian squatted down next to the bed until their gazes were level.

  “I know,” he whispered. “I still wake up and expect to find Phoebe beside me.” Xyn too on the really bad days. “I haven’t even deactivated her cell phone. I keep it so that I can call and hear her voice on those hours when I feel like I can’t take it anymore. It’s not fair that we’re forced to live without them while the world goes on, oblivious to the fact that it’s missing the most vital part of it.”

  He let out a bitter laugh to try to clear the pain that was choking him and making him want to scream out from the injustice of it. “It’s why I’m here with your hairy ass. I don’t want to see Tory and Ash. Not because I hate him like you do, but because they remind me of what I no longer have. And while I don’t begrudge them their happiness, it makes my loneliness burn even deeper.”

  Styxx finally blinked. “Why do you talk to me, Urian?”

  “I don’t know. You’re entertaining when you’re not catatonic or in a coma. Or in a homicidal rage. Why do you talk to me?”

  “Because I can’t hear your thoughts.”

  Urian scowled at the last thing he’d expected him to say. “Excuse me?”

  Styxx sighed. “It’s something I’ve been able to do from birth. With a tiny handful of exceptions, one of whom is you, I hear every thought in someone’s head.”

  So he shared that talent with Spawn. Wow, that was not something he envied. “That has to suck.”

  “It does indeed. That was what made me so lethal on the battlefield. I knew what my enemies were going to do and I could cut them off.”

  ??
?Yeah, okay, that would not suck.” Urian had meant to make him laugh, but if anything it darkened Styxx’s mood, so he changed the subject. “You think you could eat something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Urian handed him a bottle of water. “You need to sip this. While I know you can’t die from hunger or thirst, you still feel both. I’ll go recon the fridge while you take a shower.” He rose to his feet, then left the room so that Styxx could have some privacy.

  Though he was a little worried that he might do something drastic. Hoping for the best, he went into the kitchen to make them both sandwiches. It was one of the few things he knew Styxx really liked.

  That and spaghetti, but sadly Urian couldn’t cook. He needed Danger for those skills.

  Without a word, Styxx came over to get his sandwich from the counter.

  Urian swallowed his bite and wiped his chin as he watched Styxx dig in with gusto. “You know, food still tastes weird to me. It’s hard to get used to eating when I lived on blood for eleven thousand years.”

  Styxx frowned at him. “I’m surprised you haven’t filed down your fangs.”

  “Hadn’t really thought about it. But I’ve never seen myself without them. Too old to change now. Might throw off my bite and I have enough trouble chewing as it is. You probably don’t realize chewing is a skill. And the first time I bit my tongue … be glad you weren’t there for it.”

  Well, so much for his humor. That, too, had fallen flat.

  Without so much as cracking a smile, Styxx sat down to eat his ham sandwich. “What made you decide to go Daimon?”

  Urian paused at a most personal question that he hated answering. Because the truth … not for public consumption. Last thing he wanted was to relive the day that had set them on the course of hunting down Phoebe’s family.

  Not to mention, he’d been a fool to get caught like that.

  So as much as he loved Styxx as a friend, he didn’t want to share a story of that much rampant stupidity. At least not tonight. Instead, he defaulted to a partial truth that was kind of right … ish. “Rage, mostly.” That was true … “My best friend was a couple of years older than me and he refused to fight the curse. So I watched him age to an old man in less than twenty-four hours, screaming in utter agony the entire day until he decayed into nothing but dust.”

  While he hadn’t seen Darius actually die, he’d witnessed plenty of others do it, so it wasn’t entirely bullshit. “All I could think about was that he’d never harmed anyone. Never even been in a fistfight, and all because of my own grandfather over something that happened before I could walk. It pissed me off. But after losing Phoebe, I can understand why Apollo was so upset and cursed us. I’d have done as much, if not more, if they’d murdered my son and beloved mistress, too.”

  Styxx released a painful sigh. “He didn’t love Ryssa.”

  Urian arched a brow. “What?”

  “She was a possession. Nothing more. Most of the time, he bitched about her whining and complaining … which she did all the time, about everything.”

  “That’s not what Ash says.”

  “He and I had two entirely different sisters. She coddled him and hated me.”

  “Why?”

  Styxx swallowed his bite of food. “What can I say? I’m an asshole. As for Acheron, she felt sorry for him. In her mind, she was convinced that I stole our father’s throne and his love from my brother.”

  “Is that why he calls you a thief?”

  Styxx shrugged. “I don’t know. Ironically, I didn’t even want the throne. I just wanted a family that didn’t hate me.”

  He could understand that, given the fact his father had killed his wife and cut his throat.

  Urian finished off his sandwich. “I’d have gladly given you some brothers. Man, there was so much testosterone in that house, I don’t know how my mother and sister stood us. But we were mostly happy. Although my older brothers said that my father was a very different man after Apollo cursed us.”

  “How so?”

  Urian shrugged. “He was happier and much more easygoing.” He picked up the pickle from his plate. “The only thing I really hated was not seeing sunlight.” He laughed bitterly. “My father used to get so mad at me when I was a kid. I’d sneak out, trying to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. And he’d start screaming that if I wanted to burst into flames, then he was willing to begin the process by setting my ass on fire if I didn’t get to safety.”

  Styxx laughed. “He loved you.”

  “Yeah, to the day he cut my throat. I’ve never understood it. After Darius died, I adopted his son and daughter.” They had come along after Nephele and Geras had both died. “When Ida and Mylinus died, it about killed me. I can’t imagine ever getting so mad at them that I’d do something like that, and they weren’t technically mine.” Just as he’d been with Neph and Geras. So long as he lived, he’d never understand his father’s motivation. “How do you cut your own son’s throat?”

  “I don’t know, Uri. I’ve never understood it, either. When I was just a boy, my own mother tried to kill me for giving her a birthday present. She stabbed me I don’t know how many times.”

  Urian’s eyes widened with incredulity. Was he kidding? “Your mother?”

  He nodded. “Ryssa, too.”

  “Stabbed you?” Urian couldn’t wrap his head around what he was telling him.

  Styxx took a drink of his milk before he responded. “Ryssa gutted me the day before she died.”

  He gaped at that. While his brothers and sister had threatened that on a near daily basis, none had actually ever attempted it. And he could think of a few times when it might have been warranted. “What’d you do?”

  “She attacked me over your grandfather.”

  “Apollo? Why?”

  Styxx scoffed. “Would you believe jealousy? She stupidly thought I was trying to seduce him as a lover to take his attention from her.”

  “Ew!” He couldn’t think of anything more revolting. Not because Apollo was a man. But because he was so lacking in anything remotely resembling a decent human trait.

  “Believe me, I couldn’t agree more. No offense, but I hate your grandfather with every part of me. Just being in a room with him makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to defend him. I personally think he’s a rank, sorry, selfish son of a whore.” Urian’s phone rang. He looked down and checked the ID to see that it was Davyn. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

  He went outside onto the terrace. “Hey—”

  “What do you know about Cratus?”

  “The video game character?”

  “Seriously? Don’t make me slap you.”

  Urian snorted. “Fine. God of warcraft. Nasty Titan bastard. Why?”

  “If you can, you might want to head back. There’s a situation brewing.”

  Oh, how he hated whenever Davyn said that to him. “Okay. Thanks.” So, his dad had lost his mind and unleashed absolute evil again. Oh goody!

  Disgusted, he headed in to find Styxx cleaning up. “I have to head out. AOM later?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t forget, your brother’s wedding is this afternoon.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. It’s why I came to get you.”

  Styxx looked as thrilled to attend it as Urian did. While they were both happy Acheron had Tory, neither was looking forward to a wedding given what they’d lost.

  “Hey, we’ll go in. Get it done. Get drunk and get out.”

  Styxx snorted. “I like your plan of attack.”

  He winked at him. “I learned strategy from the master.” He lifted his sleeve to show him his tribute to the Stygian Omada.

  As he’d predicted, Styxx made a face of distaste. “That’s creepy.”

  “But in a good way.”

  “We’ll pretend so, if it makes you feel better.” In spite of those words, Urian heard the teasing note beneath them. A part of Styxx was touched by i
t.

  Glad that he’d shown the tattoo to him, Urian held his hand out. When Styxx took it, he pulled him into a brotherly embrace with their hands between their chests.

  Without another word, Urian vanished.

  Urian sighed as he handed Styxx a longneck beer and they hung out in the back of the reception hall. “Damn, how many people are in Tory’s family?”

  “I don’t know.” Styxx scratched at the collar of his tuxedo. “I swear I’ve been in countries with smaller populations.”

  He nodded.

  Alexion walked over to them. “Don’t you two look a little green around your gills. You okay? Or should I get a bucket to catch your vomit?”

  Urian was definitely choking on bile. “There’s an awful lot of Hunters in this place.”

  “Mostly former.”

  “When you’re a Daimon, same difference.”

  “Ex-Daimon,” Alexion reminded him.

  Urian scoffed. “Same difference.”

  Styxx screwed his face up as Tory went down a line of relatives, chatting with each one of them. “How does she keep them all straight?”

  “It’s her superpower.” Kat came up behind him, laughing. “Impressive, right? I spent a summer on a boat with her and her cousin Geary when Tory was a kid. She’s a pistol.”

  Urian was baffled by it all. “How are you handling it?”

  “What? That Ash is my father? Or that Tory’s my stepmom?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Katra laughed. “You two need more alcohol.”

  “Kat? Mia’s hungry.”

  Urian grew quiet as Sin, Kat’s husband, handed her their infant daughter so that she could take her off to breast-feed her. Sin was probably the only one here who hated Artemis more than Styxx, Acheron, or Urian.

  And only because he was the god Kat had stolen the powers from all those centuries ago when she’d cried on Urian’s shoulder from the guilt over it.

  Weird how life turned out. Had she not done that, she wouldn’t have gotten together with Sin centuries later and had that beautiful daughter …

  Urian glanced to Ash and Tory, who had a similar eerie encounter in that Acheron had saved Tory’s grandfather as a boy and brought him on a ship to America after he’d been orphaned. Had Ash not brought Theo to New York, Tory’s father wouldn’t have been born and Theo wouldn’t have told him the stories of Atlantis that led to Tory’s birth and her quest that led her to Ash.