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It was now or never.
I hoped to Seth this plan worked.
I pressed my fingers hard against Leo’s sternum, and the invisible tether binding us together pulled taut so sharply I heard an electric snap. My vision blurred, going pure white and blotting out everything around me. I could only sense Cerberus’s presence as a shadow on the edges of the light.
Making my best guess of the dog’s head from where it had last been, I shoved my hand outward and made contact with coarse, wiry fur. My fingernails dug deep, breaking skin, and suddenly I was the center point in a circuit. Electricity shot through Leo, burning up inside me and punching through my hand into Cerberus.
All three heads howled in unison, and the middle one tried to jerk free, but I dug in, refusing to let go. If I had to feel this terrible, the three heads of Cerberus were sure as fuck going to feel terrible right alongside me.
Leo was breathless, short, whining pants emerging from his mouth as I drained everything out of him. I wanted to stop but found I was unable. How wrong I’d been to think I was in control of this. The storm was my master, even here.
A scream ripped through me as the lightning ate away whatever was holding my lung together. Pain suffused every cell in my body, and as I struggled to catch my breath, the taste of blood coated my throat.
This was killing me.
A million tiny deaths rioted through my body, shredding the very foundations that made me, undoing the bits and pieces that animated me. I was sure if this lasted a second longer I would simply cease to be, vanishing in a mist of nothingness, forgotten by even those with eternal memories.
Cerberus’s animal yowl matched mine, and Leo was the first to break, ripping my hand from his chest.
My vision cleared instantly, and the electricity died just as fast. I’d been unplugged.
Tears poured from my eyes, and my hands were shaking. Blood caked all of my nail beds, and I couldn’t tell if it was mine or if I’d drawn that much from both Leo and the dog.
I coughed onto the back of my hand, and blood coated my skin.
No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t catch my breath. I panted, and all I could hear was a rattling wheeze. I gave Leo a desperate look, but his gaze was locked on Cerberus. All six of the dog’s eyes had gone milk-white, the tongues lolling from three mouths. A low, guttural whine emitted from the dog’s belly, and it teetered drunkenly.
Leo had more wherewithal left in him to see what was about to happen than I did. He grabbed hold of my belt, obviously avoiding any skin-to-skin contact, and threw me past him, to the place where Charon’s boat had landed us initially. Between my deflated lung and the uneven surface beneath us, I lost my footing and hit the ground.
The whole valley shook violently with the power of an earthquake.
I didn’t think I weighed that much.
“Tallulah.” Leo crouched next to me, and the bare worry on his face warred with his hands, which still seemed unwilling to touch me. “Can you hear me?”
“Did I earthquake?” The words in my head did not equal the words that came out of my mouth.
He hesitated, then wedged his arm under my back and lifted me onto my feet, but not in the same effortless way he had before. We both winced from the exertion, and when we were standing, neither of us looked particularly well.
But neither did Cerberus.
The epic crash had been the dog hitting the ground, where now all three heads were resting motionless.
I briefly thought we might have killed it, but one of the heads chuffed, and a groggy wheeze emitted from the creature’s belly. The beast was down, but it was impossible to know for how long. We had to take advantage of this window to get to the door.
“Can you climb?” he asked.
“Do I have a choice?” Each word was a Herculean effort, using up breath I didn’t have to spare. If we managed to get past the hellhound and out that door, I was getting myself to the nearest hospital and hoping to gods I didn’t find myself right back here in a couple days.
“Come on.” Leo was almost as wobbly as I was, and we made a slow climb up the bones towards the dog.
I saw immediately that if we were going to reach the door, we would need to do so by scaling Cerberus itself.
Super.
Each step we took I half-expected the thing to wake up, growl once, and eat us alive. However, by the time we reached one of the animal’s necks, it started to snore. I had drained almost all the life force and energy out of myself and Leo, and what had I done?
Put the guardian of the underworld down for a nap.
