Rise of the Blood

Chapter Eleven

It turned out that it was Apollo and not Yiayia who had the intel on nearby entrances to the Underworld. Apparently, we’d already been within spitting distance of the nearest one. A cult of the dead had operated around the Tholos tomb where the Pythian Serpent had attacked. It seemed logical, I guessed. A monument commemorating a military victory would probably also involve honoring the dead. If Hades’s influence had been particularly strong there, it made sense that this would be a link to his domain.

Outfitted with a bow and a brace of arrows (Apollo) and a huge hunting knife (me), we stood in front of the Tholos now. No guns allowed. Althea didn’t have any because, in her words, “they weren’t sporting.” Neither was my bridesmaid’s gown. I’d changed into something a lot more practical—jeans and a heather-gray long-sleeved tee and hiking boots.

Viggo and his limo would have been too conspicuous, a cab would have left a trail, so Apollo and I walked, counting on the dark to hide us from watchful eyes. Because the Tholos was still a crime scene, just like the Sanctuary at Delphi. Site by site, we were taking out tourist destinations and millennia of history, just what Uncle Hector and his movie had hoped to bolster. It had to stop. We had to stop it.

“Where do we start?” I asked.

There was crime scene tape blocking off the access path to the Tholos, but no police here or up at the sanctuary site. We’d spread them too thin. Those who weren’t wounded or dead were probably down at the hotel, where structural damage caused by Typhoeus kept the danger level high.

In answer, Apollo ducked the crime scene tape. I followed, trying to avoid flashbacks to the Pythian Serpent crunching down on the officer who didn’t make it, the monolithic stone tumbling from the top of the Tholos and nearly crashing down on our heads…

Apollo stopped at the edge of the crater caused by the serpent erupting from the earth and shined a flashlight down into the depths. I stepped up beside him and stared down into it. And down…and down. It was more an impression of depth than an actual visual, since the beam didn’t penetrate the whole length of the tunnel. Or maybe it was the way air seemed to be trapped in there, moaning to be free. It was eerie.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

“What do you think’s more likely,” he asked back, “That the serpent made all new tunnels coming after us or that he used existing pathways?”

The man was more than just a pretty face.

“Existing,” I answered.

“That’s what I thought.”

He put the butt of the flashlight in his mouth to have his hands free for disentangling our climbing gear—harnesses, ropes, carabiners, anchors that he’d borrowed from Spiro, who’d apparently planned on a little adventuring after the wedding. He’d given me a knowing look when I’d asked for it, as though climbing were code for something a lot more horizontal than vertical, but he relinquished it with the demand that he wanted it back in good working order. I heard the shower going in his room when I went by for the equipment, and figured that he was otherwise occupied for the time being anyway. I wondered if it was Jesus and instantly realized I didn’t want to know.

“Do you know how any of this works?” I asked, looking at the twisted-up ropes like I would a string of hopelessly tangled Christmas lights I’d never put up. With my fear of heights I hadn’t ever had the occasion to ascend or descend anything more challenging than stairs.

He took the flashlight out of his mouth and handed it to me so that he could answer. “Of course.”

Of course, I mimicked under my breath, wiping the flashlight off on my jeans. I had a bad feeling about this. I didn’t want anyone else hurt because of me. The Underworld was supposedly booby-trapped so that mortals could get in but they couldn’t get out. And gods…they weren’t even supposed to get in. Hades wasn’t crazy about how he’d made out in the dominion lottery, but he was crazy dedicated to guarding what was his.

“Apollo,” I began, ready to voice my concerns.

“Stop,” he said firmly.

“But—”

“No.”

Now he was just pissing me off. I was going to say my piece.

“Yes,” I said adamantly. “You make whatever call you’re going to make, but listen first.”

He looked up from messing with the lines, straight into my glare. “Okay.”

“When the titans were defeated, weren’t many of them banished to Tartarus?”

“Yes,” he said, brows furrowed, wondering what I was getting at.

“So there’s a good chance that if they’re rising, Hades has his hands full.”

He nodded.

“That could mean that he’s too busy to take any notice of our approach or that he’s already on high alert for trouble, which will make this infinitely harder. Even if he’s fully occupied, I’m not sure that sneaking up on him is our best idea ever.”

“I don’t see what choice we have. There are no cell towers in Hell.”

“I’m just saying…this is your chance to change your mind. Show me how to use this junk and get back to the others. I won’t…” my voice broke, “…I won’t be responsible for your death.”

Apollo’s whole face lit with…something. I turned away. It was too much. Like staring at a solar eclipse. I felt rather than saw him rise and take the few steps toward me. When he grabbed my chin, I looked up at him reluctantly, and he pulled me toward him with his free hand. I expected him to come in for a kiss and shook my chin out of his grasp, ready to turn aside, but he just wrapped that arm around me and hugged me to him. My arms were trapped at my sides. My face pressed to his chest, and I felt…warm, safe and disappointed all at the same time. I’d been ready to avoid that kiss, but on some level I’d wanted it…or wanted him to try it, anyway. Screwed up, that was me in a nutshell.

He rested his chin on top of my head and we just breathed together for a minute.

“Tori, I’m a big boy. I can make my own decisions. You’re not responsible for them. What’s more, I’m a god, and that comes with certain responsibilities…it’s in the handbook.”

I pulled back enough so that I could see his eyes. “There’s a handbook?”

“Sure. I wrote it. It’s in graphic novel form. I figured more people would read it that way. I’ve even got a small cult following.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said.

He shrugged, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “Maybe. You’ll have to live through this to find out.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, feeling better, respecting him for not trying to kiss me while I was vulnerable.

A graphic novel as a reason to live. Well, why not?

“Come on,” he said, eyes still shining. “Let me hook you up.” He paused for a second, then added, “Huh, I always thought that when we got to play around with ropes we’d be having a lot more fun and wearing a lot less clothing.”

And there went that respect, evaporating into the evening air. Or not, because I couldn’t help but smile, which I’m sure had been his intent. If nothing else, the banter was keeping my mind off my fears and recriminations. Someday I’d thank him for that. If we lived that long.

“Ready?” he asked, holding open a section of harness that I guessed was supposed to be a leg hole. I gave it a dubious look and stepped through. He repeated the procedure with the other leg and then buckled something around my waist, tugging a section at my back to make sure all was secure.

“I feel like a marionette,” I said.

“Trust me, you are much too pretty to play Pinocchio.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“You’re very inspiring.”

I snorted, and he left it alone, though I wouldn’t have minded if the banter lasted a little longer, postponing our descent into the abyss.

I winced as he drove an anchor, or whatever they called it in mountain-scaling lingo, into the ground. I knew the site had already been violated and that we weren’t exactly standing on undisturbed ground. Still it hurt to deface an ancient site this way. Like kicking over a standing stone.

He looped a rope through the anchor, tested things out, did some voodoo with the equipment and a harness of his own, and we were apparently ready to go…way too soon. I wondered if his harness cut into him the way mine cut into me. Or, maybe not in the exact same way. I wondered if I was wondering to keep my mind off the amazing stupidity of what we were about to do—descend into the Underworld, hotbed of Hades, restless titans, Thanatos and Hypnos and Cerberus—oh my!

“Let’s go,” he said, when he decided all was in readiness.

“I liked our last date better,” I said, before I could consider my words.

“Duly noted. When all this is over, I’ll buy you a nice dinner at a beautiful upscale restaurant. You can wear that wrap dress again…and maybe something other than a scowl this time.”

I scowled at him. It was nostalgic. “I’m taken,” I said, even though I wasn’t so sure it was true anymore. It was still true in my heart.

He shrugged. “You’re the one who brought it up.” But his expression wasn’t nearly as casual as his words.

“How do we do this?” I asked.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “That way I can get to ground level, make sure it’s all clear and hold the rope so that you can repel down. Just like climbing a rock wall.”

Right. Just like that thing I’d never done. But, hey, I’d seen it on TV, so that was the next best thing, right?

“Bombs away,” I told him. He looked at me funny from his perch on the edge of the abyss, but I was used to that. If I took exception every time someone looked at me funny, I’d spend my life in righteous indignation. Sounded exhausting.

“A kiss for luck?” he asked.

“Yeah, cause I’ve been so lucky so far. Look at Armani. Um, Nick.”

He held my gaze a moment more, letting me know he’d caught that.

“Right,” he said. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

And then he was. He pushed off the side and was sliding down into the abyss, holding his own rope with gloved hands. I watched him go, but with the sun now set, it wasn’t long before he disappeared.

Yes, I missed him. But more because I was squatting on the edge of a big black hole, waiting for my own journey to the center of the earth.

When he yelled, I learned over the abyss, got vertigo and stopped.

“What,” I yelled back.

“Slide down. I’ve got you.” It seemed to come from a long, long way away. If I hadn’t been straining, I’d never have heard him.

The shakes set in. My pits grew damp. It was like ambrosia withdrawal, only without the fun hallucinations. The horror before me was real.

I took a deep breath, counted to ten, let it go. I’d seen people do that on television too, or maybe in infomercials to calm stress. They were full of shit.

“Tori?” he called.

“Coming,” I yelled down impatiently. Geez, give a girl a chance. “Okay,” I said for my own sake. “Here goes.”

I sat down on my butt and scooted myself toward the edge, shaking the whole way. Terror rose up, choking me, making me feel like I couldn’t catch a breath or let one out. My heart was pounding so hard I expected my chest to explode. But I didn’t stop…until I hit the very edge and small rocks started to skitter out from under me, raining down into the abyss. Probably coming down on Apollo’s head. He’d flinch. I’d fall.

“Are you sure you’ve got me?” I yelled.

Suddenly, something started to fill me, like a humming in my head. Soothing, calming. My heart rate started to slow again. I wanted to panic at the invasion, afraid Rhea might be taking over again, that she might use me to close the tunnel behind Apollo—bring it down on his head. But—

“Better?” Apollo called up.

“Are you messing with my head?” I called back.

“I’m inspiring peace.”

“Well—keep it up.” Cut it out, the fiercely independent part of me wanted to say, but she was vetoed by sanity. Not a frequent visitor to my world, so we tended to listen when she spoke. Yes, we. Me, myself and Rhea. One more personality and we’d make a blockbuster film…or at least a made-for-TV movie. Ah, there, I knew the sanity wouldn’t last long.

I took a deep breath, swallowed hard and let myself go. I didn’t drop far. A body length, maybe, and then the rope pulled taut.

“Good girl,” Apollo called, making me wonder if there were cookies in this for me at the end, or a good ear scratch. “Now, I’m going to let you down easy.”

Easier than Armani. No, no, I wasn’t going to think of that. Now was no time for distractions.

Hand over hand, Apollo lowered me down into the darkness while I tried not to think of Nick, creepy crawlies or falling to a deadly death. Yes, I knew it was redundant. But any scenario where I didn’t just go quietly into that good night at a ripe old age struck me like that.

When the hands reached me, I shrieked.

“Tori, it’s me. I’ve got you.”

Apollo. I wanted to hug him and squeeze him…and call him a bastard for scaring me like that.

“Your hands are cold,” I lied.

“Uh huh.”

I heard his clothing rustle and then realized that I still held the flashlight, so illuminating our surroundings was up to me.

Apollo gently angled my hand to shine the light on the climbing ropes so that he could release me. “If they weren’t so awkward to move in, I’d suggest we stay in the harnesses for a quick getaway, but—”

He found the release. When the harness fell away, it felt like a weight had been lifted off me. Finally, I could breathe.

Apollo took the flashlight back from me and moved the beam slowly around the space. The snake’s tunnel continued downward at a slope, the floor of the tunnel smooth and almost polished, as if countless scales had slithered over it during the course of ages. It was creepy, and the way was going to be slippery, especially if we came across any wet areas.

“You got another of those for me?” I asked, nodding toward the flashlight.

“I have a cell phone with a flashlight app,” he answered.

“Never mind.”

Apollo kept the light and led the way, figuring, not wrongly, that if he slid from behind me with his greater bulk, he’d take me down with him, but if I slipped and he was in my way he had some chance of stopping the slide.

We moved slowly, and at the first branching stopped to consult our precog. It seemed counter-intuitive to head toward the danger, but the right path was clearly more ominous, based on the mule kick my precog landed on my solar plexus.

“Right?” Apollo confirmed. I nodded.

The tunnel leveled out almost entirely and the walls grew as smooth as the floors. Water dripped from the ceilings, though, and when I shone the light up toward them, it became clear that the drips were coming from the end of dark stalactites that looked like petrified icicles.

There were other branches leading off, though not many. Still, our guts kept telling us to move straight ahead and after a while—monotony tended to mess with my concept of time—there seemed to be a glow from up ahead, as if we were getting somewhere. I got the sense, too, that things opened up ahead, and the phantom mule gave me another kick to the gut, as if in affirmation.

Apollo felt it too. He put a hand back to slow me, silently, and together we crept toward the end of the tunnel…the light at the end of the tunnel. Hadn’t I heard somewhere not to go into the light? Unfortunately, I didn’t see that we had a choice.

When Apollo stopped, I nudged him aside, unable to let him discover anything before me. The light was coming from some kind of florescent moss covering the stalactites. Spiro would have loved it, but my attention was caught by what the light revealed. The smooth floor of the tunnel led down to a shore of equally smooth rocks, and beyond that, a slow-moving river on which sat a weathered skiff and a skeletal ferryman. Or, at least, as thin as he was there couldn’t have been much more than bones beneath his tattered cloak.

Charon. Ferryman for the dead.

If he knew we were here, then Hades…

And yet my precog hadn’t kicked up full force—bells and whistles and migraine-inducing klaxons.

Charon turned as he sensed our approach. I couldn’t see his face inside the hood and cowl of his cloak, but the boney finger he pointed our way, which I was glad to see was covered in a minimum of flesh anyway (fish belly white) was unmistakable. He crooked it at us in the universal sign for “Come hither.” To your doom, my brain wanted to add, but I beat it into submission.

I pointed to my own chest to make sure he was really talking to us and that there weren’t some other lost souls, maybe spirits we couldn’t actually see, who he might be signaling.

“Come here,” he demanded, his voice as threadbare as his cloak. It sounded like the wind howling mournfully through thick marsh grasses—thin and rank with decay.

Apollo and I looked at each other. “But we’re not dead,” he said, just to be clear.

Charon sighed like a bubble of swamp gas releasing. “Hades sent me to fetch you. There is trouble afoot.”

Well, no shit, Sherlock.

I looked to Apollo for some sign. He knew the old gods better than I did. Was Hades for real? There was no way he could have missed the earth quaking. And if the titans were rising, he’d no doubt need help. I just couldn’t see him asking for it. On the other hand, Charon hadn’t exactly been asking.

“We don’t have the fare,” Apollo said, still testing.

“Your fare has been paid.”

“One-way ticket?” I asked.

“There is no way back. At least, not on my skiff.”

We’d have to find our own way home.

“Come, come,” he insisted. “I have souls waiting.”

Apollo and I shared one last look before approaching the boat. It looked like if you stepped wrong you’d put a foot right through it. Fine for disembodied spirits. Not so for the living.

“You sure this will hold us?” I asked.

Charon stared at me from the depths of his cloak, and even though his face was still locked in impenetrable shadow I could feel his lack of give-a-damn.

Whatever. Maybe my buoyant personality would keep me afloat. Tentatively, I stepped into the boat. It canted crazily beneath me, but didn’t scuttle or dump me through, so staying low as I’d been taught once upon a time I pulled my other foot in behind me. The floorboards creaked ominously. If I were that kind of woman, it would have given me a complex about my weight. But I wasn’t, and it didn’t. I sat quickly and watched Apollo board. The boat lurched as his weight hit, and I grabbed instinctively for the sides to hang on for dear life. Beneath us, the water flowed in a slow, viscous way, as if it was more oil than water. It even had rainbow swirls like spilled gasoline floating on top. Or…not floating, but shifting, like a kaleidoscope, the picture ever-changing. For a second, I thought I caught a memory, and then it was gone, whipped like a rug out from under me. I almost wanted to dive after it.

“Don’t do it,” Apollo said, putting a hand on my arm. “The River Styx. You go in, you don’t come out again. It’s like the tar pits.”

I looked at him, and then Charon, who laughed, a sound like bullfrogs croaking, as he worked his pole, pushing us across the River before we could change our minds. The River wasn’t wide, but now I knew why it took a ferryman to cross.

We bumped up moments later on the opposite shore, rocks scraping the bottom of the bow. I braced for the water to seep up and into the skiff, but nothing happened. Charon used the pole to rock the boat and get my attention. “Out,” he commanded.

I considered flipping him off, but I couldn’t see what good it would do, so instead I let Apollo disembark first and hold out a hand to me. I accepted it, proud but not stupid. I’d take the steadying influence.

As soon as I was on solid ground, I turned to Charon. “Where to now?” I asked.

But he was already poling the skiff back across the way and didn’t even acknowledge me. I was already dead to him.

“Great.” I muttered, facing Apollo again. I was about to ask him the same question when my gut clenched with warning, and I saw the three sets of shining red eyes coming at us out of the darkness beyond the glowing moss. Emerging from side tunnels? I wondered, as if it mattered where they came from so much as their intentions.

I knew those eyes. Hellhounds. Quite literally.

Apollo and I moved a little apart from each other—not quite shoulder to shoulder—so that we’d have room to fight and yet be able to protect each others’ flanks. Like we’d done this before. Which we had. But as the hellhounds emerged, they didn’t seem ready to attack. Their lips stayed down over their teeth, and while they were wary and their hackles raised, they didn’t pick up speed as they approached or bunch up like they were ready to lunge…not unless we made a wrong move.

“Our emissaries?” Apollo ventured.

“If he’s got an uprising in Tartarus, they may be all Hades can spare,” I said, watching warily as the three started to circle behind us and close in, almost as if…

“They’re herding us,” I said.

“Well, then we let them. For now. But keep watch, just in case we’re headed into a trap. This all seems too easy.”

It was…until it wasn’t.

The hounds kept crowding us, cutting off exits they didn’t want us to take, herding us along the paths they intended. I kept vigilant for tripwires and stepped tentatively, worried about anything from another abyss to pressure grenades. But in a place of souls it was hard to prepare for everything—like the shriek of a thousand voices that greeted us up ahead.

Apollo and I gave each other a look and started running full out. We stopped short at the sight that greeted us when the passage opened up. In front of us stood a monstrous pack of hellhounds, Cerberus in all his three-headed glory and a mere handful of gods. I recognized Hades. He’d traded in the pastels of the Miami Vice look he wore above ground for red and black—a loose-fitting black suit with the sleeves rolled up, red T-shirt underneath, Italian leather shoes…or Greek, who could tell? I also knew his two sons—Thanatos, who looked like the stereotypical Grim Reaper, only wielding a sword instead of the iconic sickle, and Hypnos, all punked and pierced. The woman was a mystery, but her black leather catsuit was rockin’ and her hair was wild with some kind of storm that seemed to rage only around her. Hecate, at a guess. She was the only other Underworld god/dess I knew off the top of my head, though from the other figures gathered, I assumed there were more. Or that Hades’s dubious charm had garnered him allies.

But it was what was beyond them that captured my attention. Beyond them was…it looked like a barrier, a bubble stretched to its limit with arms and limbs and tentacles pushing through. The hellhounds growled, as if they could warn the titans back. Cerberus snarled and snapped at the air. The gods arrayed themselves against the imminent outbreak, arms out, a miasma or mist coming from their outstretched palms. It flowed toward the near-to-bursting barrier and formed a layer that momentarily pushed back the uprising.

“You going to help?” Hades called over his shoulder, apparently aware of our presence.

Apollo ran forward. I had no choice but to follow, though I didn’t know what good I’d do. I had one trick in my arsenal. One. I could freeze people and creatures…temporarily. But it had never worked on the Olympians, and the titans were older and more fearsome still, children of the original power couple, Oceanus and Gaea, the progenitors of Kronos and Rhea. They were the oldest of the old. Against them I was a single ant trying to take down a giant anteater.

Apollo took position beside Thanatos, and I stood next to him, my heart trying to pound its way straight out of my chest. As I stared there seemed to be a coordinated attack on the barrier and all at once it burst with the power of a sonic boom. The gods were blown back. I landed hard, right beneath Thanatos, whose elbow caught me on the chin as he fell, making me see stars. I blinked hard, desperate to clear them so that I could at least meet doom head-on. My brain almost went on strike refusing to process what was before me. Some of the titans were nearly human looking but for their vast size and the fact that they could have been carved out of mountains. Some had extra limbs or predator’s teeth or tusks. Others had tentacles or stingers or far, far too many eyes.

And they were coming straight for us. I pushed Thanatos aside as a tentacle slammed his way and he hadn’t recovered fast enough to dodge. As I pushed him, I used the counter pressure to roll the other way, toward the sword he’d dropped. I grabbed the hilt just as something grabbed me—another tentacle from the way it wrapped my ankle. I kicked and bucked to turn myself over onto my back where I could get the leverage and the space to swing the sword. I flopped like a landed fish—inelegant, but effective—and brought the sword down hard on the tentacle holding me. It didn’t release, though it did flinch, tightening its muscles painfully, like a constrictor squeezing me so hard I thought the foot would pop right off the end of my leg. Frantically, I swung again, and this time when ink-like blood spattered me, the tentacle loosened, and I realized it was because I’d cut it clean off and yet it was still attached to my ankle. There was no time for a girly gross-out. Another three tentacles were coming for me.

I rolled and scuttled out of the way of them, looking for some distance from which I could strategize a better angle on the battle than one tentacle at a time. I saw that Thanatos had pulled a second sword from somewhere and was swinging about like a madman, severing tentacles and claws, slimy with blood and ichor. Hellhounds were darting in—or being hurled out, yelps cut off in a horrifyingly final manner. Apollo was using a claw from something that could have been the great grandpappy of all velociraptors to wedge open a gryphon-like mouth that was trying to get at him.

I jumped the latest tentacle lashing out and went in with Thanatos’s lost sword, aiming for the soft skin under the titan’s neck. As the sword pierced the skin, the gryphon bugled and thrashed, knocking me to the side. The sword whipped free with me and together we went sliding across the ground in a puddle of something I didn’t want to identify.

From my ant’s-eye view I saw Cerberus facing off with a mega mountain of a man—a titan, looking almost human but for a second head. It was a death match. The titan had one of Cerberus’s heads locked within his massive arms, trying to choke the life out of it, while the next closest head had its fangs buried in the back of the titan’s neck. Both struggled, both locked on, it seemed, until their power ran out. I couldn’t worry about them.

I rolled back to my feet, sword still miraculously in hand. Half my body aching and the other half unable to be heard over those complaints.

Apollo’s gryphon was down, and he’d rushed to Hades’s aid, now standing shoulder to shoulder with Hecate as she defended Hades, who was chanting with ever-increasing furor, something dark and sinister growing between his cupped hands.

A massive club swung by one of the other titans knocked Apollo aside, sending him flying. I raced to intercept—to cushion his impact, flinging my sword arm out to my side so that I wouldn’t catch him with it. Apollo struck me just as Hades let loose with his spell. It crashed into the chest of the club-wielding titan and exploded outward. The titan howled as the impact from the darkness seemed to open some kind of miasma in its chest. Not so much a wound as a void, a black hole. Its knees buckled, and the ground jumped, as it fell hard. The darkness expanded, catching another titan, who looked part crab, claws whipping out toward Hypnos, who dodged them like Jack-be-Nimble jumping over the candlestick. Hypnos kicked off the claw, doing a flip in mid-air, which would have been completely impressive if an involuntary spasm of pain hadn’t sent the claw flailing out and catching him just wrong, striking the back of his legs and unbalancing him in the air. He went crashing into the side of the monstrous, two-headed titan and slid to the ground.

Catching Apollo had knocked the wind out of me, but that was nothing to the sight of the coming stampede. The sounds of terror—raptor, serpentine, leonine, human—erupted as the darkness spread, and all thoughts of battle evaporated. A single-minded, instinctive flight response took its place. Anything to avoid the miasma. And we, all of us, Team Underworld, were between the titans and escape. I saw it coming on, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape. Apollo had recovered himself, and faster than thought pivoted us out of the way of the first massive body blasting past us, taking chunks out of the tunnel wall as it went, but then the next hit us like a freight train. We ricocheted off into the next and went down under a set of knife-sharp hooves.

After that, I lost track and, very quickly, consciousness. We’d failed. The titans were unleashed.