She shivered as the halves of her robe fell open, revealing the length of her bare body.
Open your eyes, kardia, and look at me.
Slowly, she did. And gasped as his face shifted and morphed into that of the Lord of the Underworld.
A depraved, victorious sneer ran across Hades’s face as he drank in every inch of her naked flesh. Horror pressed in and she opened her mouth to scream. But the only sound she heard was his heinous voice closing in to smother her.
Soon you will truly be mine.
***
Demetrius paused outside the open, arched doorway and listened to the slow steady rhythm of Isadora’s breathing.
Thank all the gods she was asleep.
Tired himself, he placed a hand against the cool stones and debated the urge to take a peek at her. Then he remembered the fear in her eyes when they’d been attacked on the beach. When she’d broken her leg all over again. When she’d watched him casting the invisibility spell on that bluff so that damn harpy couldn’t see them anymore.
Too bad he also remembered the disgust.
Bitterness brewed in his stomach when he thought of the way she’d said witch, but he welcomed it. Welcomed the familiar feeling and the distraction it brought as he pushed away from the wall and headed for the passageway he’d found hidden in the northwest corner of the ruins.
With the protection spell in place, he was able to breathe a little easier. Any monsters lurking in the shadows wouldn’t be able to get past the circle he’d cast, at least for now. His powers were nothing more than tricks, really. He wasn’t strong enough to cast a spell for any serious length of time. Tomorrow night he’d have to cast the damn spell all over again, and there was a good chance it might not even work. And judging by the way his luck was going…
His jaw clenched as he moved down four dusty steps that took him into what he suspected had once been a kitchen or dining hall but was now nothing more than rock and soil and open sky. Stars twinkled overhead and moonlight shimmered down, casting shadows and light over the uneven ground. He moved around a corner and paused near a six-inch gap that ran from floor to what used to be a ceiling at least ten feet high, where two walls intersected in the shape of an L.
He might have passed right by this spot earlier if he hadn’t felt the chill brush his face. Now he was just plain curious. He ran his fingers over the edge of the gap. The air leaking out was cool, but not frigid. Grasping the edge of the protruding wall, he pulled, and like a door opening, the wall hinged outward.
The space was just wide enough to slide through, no wider. He paused inside to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. From the moonlight shining at his back, he realized he was looking at another wall of solid stone.
He was just about to turn around and head out the way he’d come when the cool air slid over his bare feet. Kneeling down, he ran his fingers along the bottom edge of the wall and the inch-high gap that stretched the width of a door.
A false wall, he realized. Stepping as far back as he could, he squinted and discovered what faced him wasn’t solid stone but an arched doorway. He pressed his palm against the center of the door. Pushed. Nothing happened. Lifting his gaze, he looked over the entire space, and that’s when he noticed the ancient text inscribed into the stones surrounding the door. Faint, weathered from time and the elements, but readable.
Only he who hath been chosen shall pass unto this sacred place. Speak ye hero and enter.
A shot of apprehension rippled through him. What could possibly be sacred on this miserable island? His brow wrinkled as he read the words again and realized it was nothing more than a riddle. He’d never been good at riddles. Never really cared. And yet…
He glanced at his forearms, and two words came to mind. The ancient Argolean words for Eternal Guardian. A name he and the other Argonauts were never even called anymore because it had fallen out of use. “Aionios Kidemonas.”
A loud scraping sound echoed and the door opened inward all by itself.
“Whoa.”
He stepped inside the circular room, which looked like home to nothing more than wide dusty steps that spiraled down into a black abyss. He listened, the only sound the rapid beat of his own heart. Beside him he spotted a metal ring embedded into the stone, roughly shoulder height, with what looked like a wooden torch perched within.
He swiped the cobwebs away, lifted the torch from its holder. Touching the rag wrapped around the end, he brought his fingers to his nose to sniff.
Oil.
Apprehension turned to wariness. His senses went on high alert. Were he and Isadora really alone on this island?
Muttering one of the easy spells he remembered from childhood, he waved the fingers of his free hand over the end of the torch and watched as flames ignited in the cloth to illuminate the downward-spiraling room and cast eerie shadows over the walls. He took a step down, then another, and as he descended he couldn’t help but consider the irony. He’d used his powers more in the last two days than he had in the last two hundred years combined.
The steps dropped what had to be thirty feet. The air was cooler down here, mustier. At the base of the steps, he held up the torch to shine over the massive space ahead.
“Holy mother of Zeus,” he whispered.
A long hall was flanked on both sides by massive marble pillars that ran up to the ceiling. Between each pillar sat a lone steel trunk. Three on the left, three on the right, and at the very end of the hall another, though this chest was bigger than the first six and was decked out with gold hinges and trimmings and the symbol of Heracles.
He moved toward the wide flat stone table that stood on a raised platform in the center of the room and held the torch waist high so he could read the words carved into the base.
Aionios Kidemonas.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he turned a slow circle, glancing from one chest to the next, each monogrammed with a different Greek symbol.
The Hall of Heroes.
No way.
A lump formed in his throat. It couldn’t be real. Not here on this island of all places, hidden away from the world.
His eyes flicked over the second chest from the end, then came back and held. He focused in on the ancient symbol of his forefather, Jason.
His heart beat hard as he stopped in front of the trunk. Glancing around, he noticed more steel circles embedded into the pillars, as if to hold luminaries. He slid the torch into the closest, then flexed his fingers and refocused.
There was no lock. No magick words to speak. Grasping the lid of the chest, he lifted. Aged metal groaned as it hinged up and back. He peered inside and froze.
“No fucking way.” His hands slid into finely spun golden wool. Slowly he lifted the fleece from its resting place and stared at the mythical object, which looked like nothing more than a ram’s skull and horns with a head full of golden curls. The search for the Golden Fleece had been Jason’s one major quest. The journey that had propelled him to hero status. The mission in which he’d fallen under Medea’s spell. It had set events into motion that now could not be undone, and which had condemned Demetrius and every other of Jason’s ancestors.
It didn’t look like much to him. He turned it in his hands, noting not a flicker of power anywhere in the damn thing. Just bones and wool and history. Frowning, he set it aside and looked down again, then felt a burst of excitement.
“Now this is what I’m talking about.” The parazonium with its black handle and red jewels was the perfect weight in his hand. He swung it right and left, brought it back to center. “If only…” He touched the edge with his free hand and winced. The blade sliced through the tip of his finger as if it had just been sharpened.
He brought the tip of his finger to his lips and sucked until the blood flow slowed and stopped and he felt his skin begin to heal. Wiping his finger on his pants, he looked back in the chest. Then smiled when he spotted a shield with Jason’s markings, a steel breastplate with the same, and shoes.
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“About time you did one damn thing for me.” He set the parazonium and shield on the massive stone tablet and bent over to push his foot into the well-used sandal.
Not a pair of hiking boots, but a thousand times better than bare feet. He’d left his shoes on the beach and had been kicking himself ever since for taking them off in the first place. Looking back in the trunk, he realized there was only one sandal, not two.
“Figures.” He tugged the sandal off and tossed it in the chest. Digging deeper, he found a spell book that had to have come from Medea, a bag of rocks he had no clue what to do with, a sheepskin rug, blankets, and a bunch of black candles.
His distaste for witchcraft reared, but with the monsters he’d seen the last two days, he wasn’t about to be picky. He’d use whatever the hell he could. Hooking the belt and scabbard over his shoulder so it lay diagonally across his back, he slid the parazonium in its sheath. After replacing the other items back in the box, he stepped to the next trunk, the one with Achilles’s symbol branded into the metal, then flipped the lid and smirked as he lifted the Pelican Spear from its resting place.
Achilles’s great spear, which had aided the famed hero in defeating Agamemnon’s enemies. He bet Zander’d like to get his hand on this. He turned it in the light. Now it was nothing but cold tarnished metal.
From trunk to trunk he moved, taking note of the objects that might just come in handy. When he was done, he gathered what he needed for the night, replaced everything else, closed each trunk, and headed back toward the spiral stairs.
At the top he extinguished the torch, replaced it in its holster. As soon as he stepped through the arched doorway, the door slid closed with a deafening thwack.
Sweet. That was the best fucking security system he’d ever seen.
The ruins were silent as he made his way back to the main hall and the small room off the north side where he’d left Isadora. With any luck she was out like a light. He’d toss a blanket over her, then park himself across the hall where he’d spotted another small room with a view down the hillside, toward the ravine below.
He climbed the four short steps to the main hall. Rubbed a hand down his face. And was twenty yards away when she screamed.
Chapter 9
The castle was a flurry of activity by the time Orpheus made it back. He flashed to the fifth-floor hall outside Gryphon’s room and was greeted by a metallic crash from inside that set his nerves on high alert.
“We’re losing him!” Callia yelled.
Machines beeped and whirred. Something hard scraped the floor. Orpheus tried to muscle his way past the two guardians blocking the doorway but it was like swimming against an ocean of stone.
“No admittance,” someone said in his ear. A hand clamped over each of his arms.
“Shit, Orpheus,” Phineus mumbled on his left. “It’s not a good idea for you to be here right now.”
Screw that. Orpheus tried to wrench his arms free. The meaty hands tightened.
“Theron,” Callia said from inside the room, “hold him down. Zander, I need that syringe. Now.”
Panic and rage pushed in as Orpheus flashed free of Cerek’s hold and reappeared at Callia’s side. “What happened?”
Callia spared a quick glance his way before depressing the syringe of clear liquid into Gryphon’s IV line. The guardian’s eyes were closed but his face was scrunched in serious pain and his body thrashed against the bed and pillow. The only things that kept him from sailing off the bed were Theron’s massive hands pressing down on his shoulders, holding his upper body in place.
“Sonofabitch,” Zander said at Orpheus’s back.
“Not good.” Callia tossed the syringe on the table to her right, then pressed her fingers against Gryphon’s carotid artery to feel his pulse. Her eyes zeroed in on her watch. “Step back, Orpheus.”
“What happened? When I left—”
“Zander?” Callia asked without even looking up.
Another hand closed over Orpheus’s upper arm. “Come on, O, give her some space to work.”
Orpheus felt his eyes shift before he could control it. He wrenched free of Zander’s grasp with his surging strength. “Fuck that! Tell me what happened!”
Voices rose up in unison around him. Gryphon got off a good kick with his right leg and sent a cart full of medical supplies crashing to the ground. In the pandemonium, Orpheus was forgotten as Zander and Cerek moved in to pin Gryphon’s legs. The machine on the wall behind Gryphon’s head picked up its incessant beeping. Then Gryphon’s entire body seized and his back arched off the bed. Another machine off to the right set off a high-pitched alarm.
“He’s flatlining!” Callia shifted around and reached for something behind her. A loud hum echoed through the room. She moved back with two large white paddles in her hands, placed one paddle just beneath Gryphon’s collar bone and the other on his left side, down by his ribs. “Clear!”
Theron, Zander, and Cerek all let go of Gryphon. A zapping sound echoed. Gryphon’s body jerked.
Callia looked at the monitor. “Again. Clear.”
As Orpheus watched the seconds tick by with no change in his brother’s condition, and Callia started CPR, the tightness in his chest returned. Only this time it was razor thin and brittle. And he knew if he didn’t do something now it would fracture and shatter, splitting him forever in two.
He pulled the Orb from his jacket pocket. The disk was cool in the palm of his hand, the chain heavy between his fingers. The symbol of the Titans deeply embedded into the center stared up at him, as did the four empty chambers waiting to be filled. But the Orb didn’t need the classic elements to work. It carried a power like no other. And right now it was the only hope Gryphon had left.
Gently, Orpheus laid the Orb over Gryphon’s bare abdomen and let go. For a second, nothing happened. And then it began to glow. Pink at first, then brighter, until it was a blinding circle of red.
“Holy shit,” someone muttered.
Realizing something was happening, Callia paused and looked over. Her eyes went wide when she caught sight of the Orb. “What the hell are you doing?”
Before she could grasp it, Gryphon shot up like a bolt of lightning, the movement so strong it threw Theron back and down to the ground with a thud. Gryphon’s arm arced out to the right, knocking Callia off her feet. She screamed as she crashed into a medical cart behind her.
“Thea!” Zander yelled.
Theron pushed to his feet in a flash. The other guardians took a step in. The Orb slid down Gryphon’s stomach and dropped into his waiting hand. And then Gryphon opened his eyes.
Movement in the room came to a screeching halt as Gryphon looked from face to face. And as his head slowly swung Orpheus’s way, a collective gasp echoed through the room. When his brother was finally staring at him, Orpheus realized what was wrong.
The eyes that bore into his own were the same as they’d always been. Deep set, light blue, the same wide almond shape Orpheus always remembered. But this time they were empty. Vacant. As soulless as if…as if there was no one home.
A monstrous grin inched its way across Gryphon’s face and his hand tightened around the glowing Orb. “My master thanks you, adelfos.”
Brother.
In a poof of smoke, Gryphon disappeared. Leaving behind only rumpled bedding and swinging tubes and wires.
“Motherfucker,” Theron muttered on the far side of the bed. “Orpheus, what the bloody fuck did you just do?”
Voices kicked up again as questions swirled. Zander helped Callia to her feet at Orpheus’s side. The Argonauts argued around him about where the Orb had come from and what had just happened. But Orpheus barely cared. All he saw was the image of his brother disappearing into nothing.
“Dear gods,” he heard Callia whisper at his side. “Orpheus. Your arms.”
In a daze, he looked down. The ancient Greek text that marked all the guardians was slowly emerging on his skin. The writing was exactly the same as what had been on
Gryphon’s arms, noting him as the guardian from Perseus’s line.
Voices trailed off. Someone swore. But the words didn’t register for Orpheus. The tightness in his chest cinched until he gasped in a breath and then it cracked and shattered, blinding him with pain. And then all of it trickled out. Until there was nothing left behind but a vast cavern of nothingness. Until the line that was his one connection back to humanity was finally severed.
“Oh, shit,” someone muttered.
“Um, guys?” Titus said from back near the door. “O’s the least of our worries right now.” Heads turned to look. But not Orpheus. He was still staring down at his forearms.
“What now?” Theron asked.
“I caught a glimpse of Gryphon’s thoughts—well, um, his thoughts—before he poofed out of here. And it wasn’t good.”
“What do you mean ‘his’?” Theron asked, stepping forward.
“‘His,’ as in the warlock,” Titus answered. “Apophis. Spawn of Hecate. Underling of the devil. Whatever the shit you want to call him. This guy’s got some serious control issues. He made a deal with Atalanta to get the hell out of Thrace Castle, but he’s been planning to double-cross her all along. And that little energy blast Gryphon took? It did exactly what Callia said it would, it killed off his soul. Only Gryphon’s soul didn’t go to the Isles of the Blessed like it should have. It went straight to the Underworld, leaving behind his body and mind for the warlock to do whatever the hell he wants with it.”
Orpheus’s eyes shot to Titus, standing in the doorway.
“Fucking A,” Phineus muttered.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Titus said, his gaze skipping from Phineus to Orpheus and then finally to Theron. “From reading Gryph’s—his—mind, it’s clear Apophis knows Atalanta has the princess. And now that he’s got the Orb of Krónos—”
“Oh, dear gods,” Callia whispered. “He’s going to go after Isadora on his own.”
“Skata,” Theron said, running a hand over his hair.
“You can say that again,” Titus muttered. “Sometimes I’d really rather not know this shit.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Hell is coming, boys. And it’s coming fast.”