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She laughed lightly. “I certainly hope not.”
Chapter 13
Soulswerebossy.
It was a weird realization to have because they were dead and all—some of them had a kind of Renaissance vibe that made me wonder just how long it had been since Thanatos had paid this place a visit—but their deadness didn’t stop them from having strong opinions.
They couldn’t speak to me, but they could obviously speak to each other. And they argued. Like, a lot. There was lots of silent shouting and gesticulations going on while I sat on the ground and watched. Ultimately, I didn’t even need to hear them to know what the plan was going to be.
This was a place of death, and I wasn’t dead. There was no question that they were going to use me as Fate Bait. Not when I had all that fresh aliveness going for me.
I wandered around while they debated, occasionally stopping to pick off the sticky cobwebs that clung to my hair and clothes. What the fuck kind of spiders lived here? Giant ghost ones with toxic glue webs? Probably.
Imagine being able to visit anywhere on earth and picking this place.The Fates must be creepy as fuck if this was the kind of place they visited to chill, and it didn’t bode well for me at all.
“It’d be cool if you guys could make, like, a human-ghost spiderweb,” I said out loud, ninety-nine percent sure I was just talking to myself, but finding the oppressive silence more than a little suffocating. I linked my fingers together miming a net and squished it down on an imaginary opponent, complete with sound effects.
Shit was dire, I really needed some regular mortal companions to converse with. Arete had been bossy, garbage company but the ghosts were worse. I missed my Gracie. Dare better be guarding her with his fucking life. If she had so much as a chipped nail, I was going to go full Wild on him.
As the souls debated, the air began to change, so slowly at first it took me a moment to notice. The second I did, so did they, disappearing into nothingness and leaving me standing in the dank, dark building alone. Alone except for the thousands of ghosts, and the three frightening deities who were undoubtedly around here somewhere, lurking in the darkness.
They smelled weird.
Somehow, that was the first thing I noticed. The building had already smelled like death and decay, but the arrival of the Fates had added an extra layer to it. Like suddenly the place had devolved to a new level of grim. While it didn’t look any different, I got the distinct impression that they were here in the room with me, as though I was being examined like a bug under a microscope.
Damn it. I really wished I’d had more time with the ghosts to come up with a game plan. Then again, the Fates were all-seeing, right? They’d probably known what I was going to do before I did. Why hadn’t that occurred to me earlier? I was so screwed.
In a sudden flash of silvery light, the souls appeared, moving like one enormous monolith, converging on the center of the room. They crawled on top of each other, and my heart beat out of my fucking chest as manic ghost faces peered down on me, the souls linking their phantom limbs together to create a webbed dome of dead people right above our heads. Holy fuck, they’d actually taken me up on my ghost human spiderweb idea?
Huh. Maybe Arete was right. Maybe Iwasa secret genius full of untapped potential. Couldn’t the Fates just plow right through the ghost web if they wanted to, though?
The Fates blinked into sight as though they’d been startled out of invisibility, and a few of the souls, including my lady ghost friend, physically attached themselves to the goddesses, hanging off their backs like spider monkeys. I had entered theTwilightzone in more ways than one.
For the love of all that was good in the world, these three were fucking terrifying. They each wore floor-length white robes with white hoods pulled up over glimmering ice-white hair, and all three of them had white gauze wrapped around the top half of their face, hiding their eyes and top of their noses. I squinted at the material, struck by the strange way it sank where I would have expected it to rise.
Did they... Did they not have eyeballs?
They weren’t hunched with age, and their hands didn’t look any older than mine, but they had deep wrinkles on their faces. It was an altogether disturbing combination, and they were only distinguishable from each because of the implements they had hanging off the silver chain belts they wore around their waists. Arete had given me a rundown, and I did my best to identify them while the souls got themselves into place. I assumed Clotho was the one with the spindle. Another, Lachesis, had no instrument, but Arete said she measured the thread between her hands. The last one, with the scissors, must be Atropos. “The Inflexible”, Arete had called her, and I could see that just from the lower half of her face. On closer inspection, unlike her sisters, Atropos’ mouth was set in a grim line, the frown lines hinting that might be her default expression. She was the first to speak, and it sounded like her vocal cords had been doused in rust.
“How intriguing. We cannot disrespect the dead by physically moving through this barrier, and we cannot flash away with these unmoored souls attached to us, trapped as they are in this godless in-between. I think we arecaught, sisters.”
“Indeed, we are caught.” Lachesis’ voice and mannerisms were more serene, and I was pretty sure I liked her more. “By a common daimon of middling talent, the most wholly mediocre of the Prophêtis’ soul bonds. How curious.”
What the fuck.
Howrude.
“Yeah, well, I did trap you, talentless commoner or otherwise,” I snapped, standing up straight and trying to look less mediocre. “And you’re stuck here until you answer my questions.”
“I do hope you didn’t promise too much,” Clotho replied, idly twisting the spindle with her fingers. “They will not be kind to you if you cannot deliver.”
“You sound very certain of that.” Thanatos better live up to expectations, or I was fucked.
“Oh yes.”
Lachesis suddenly plucked at the air as though she was catching a fly between two fingers. I startled as a gray thread materialized, as thin as a spider web. I couldn’t see the beginning or end, just the part she was holding, head cocked to the side at an unnatural angle.
She didn’t act like she had no eyeballs. I guessed they had some other way of seeing things.
