AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I wouldn’t have waited until you had hunters on your trail, but alas, men are always a day late and a dollar short, in my opinion. He may be a god, but he is still a man, and very much prone to fits of believing he is the only one who knows best.” She crosses her hands over one another and smooths her fingers over her thighs. “Yes. I heard all about it.”
“How my family sold me out, to... to...”
“His enemies,” she says simply, with a casual shrug, as if this is a normal thing. Like a gang war, except gods. Wild.
“How is this real? It can’t be. You’re all fucking with me. This is some kind of elaborate joke. I’m a contestant on some show.” My heart is racing, but deep down, my instincts are telling me that it’s real.
“I don’t think I need to show you my real aspect to convince you, Katy,” she says my name, drawing it out, and it feels like a cool breeze races along my skin, her eyes glowing now and I know it’s not a trick of the light. “The sight of it would frighten you, and I’ve come to like you in the short time we’ve known each other, and I’d be rather put out if we fell out.”
My mouth opens and closes once, twice—
“And now you look more like a fish than the cricket you’re named for,” Shay murmurs, getting to her feet and walking toward me, her hands out, palms up, in a gesture of supplication.
“Please, please, Katy, don’t be afraid.” Her eyes are glowing, her hair, her skin, all of her. A chill descends upon the room, and her voice doesn’t sound normal. It reminds me of the echoes of the wind across the plains, or tearing around a mountainside. I shiver. “You’re safe,” she promises me, and my breath catches in my throat. “Hadrion would die before he let anything happen toyou, and Falcon is a loyal friend, and a fierce ally. And there are more of us, allied with him and determined to see him back on his throne.”
“Right, his throne, the Underworld? He’s what stuck here? Like, did he miss his connecting flight?” She quirks an eyebrow at my bad joke and it falls flat between us. “Ignore that. I mean, tell me what happened.”
“The entire story is his to tell, and in truth, only he knows all of it, but yes, he’s locked in the mortal world, his subjects bereft of his rule while he’s here and not there.” She tilts her head to the side and sighs. “It disturbs the order of the whole world, of all planes and existences, and without him where he belongs--“ she doesn’t need to spell it out.
There’s only way he has so many allies here, in Detroit, Michigan, USA, the last place I would ever think that anything phenomenal would happen.
“You’re all stuck here.” my voice feels like it has no energy.
“Some of us, by choice, old friends and alliances. It’s the way of things. You don’t let your friends suffer on their own.” She walks toward the dresser and starts pulling out clothing I recognize from my shopping trip to Summerland. A fine sweater, in a light grass green, with wool embroidered flowers up the sleeves. “And you don’t need to decide now, but at some point, you will have to make a choice.” She sets the clothes on the edge of the bed and walks toward the door, her tone gentle but serious as she opens it.
“Will you be a friend and ally? Or will you turn out to be an enemy?” She holds my gaze long, her ice-eyes piercing right into my soul, before she slips out the door and closes it behind her.
I don’t knowhow long I stare at the closed door, the knob gleaming, and the wood dark and old, a grain visible in the wood that I’ve never seen before.
I feel like I’m looking at it for the first time, and it feels old. Like it’s been there for over a hundred years, which can’t be true, given the age of the construction of the club.
“This isn’t happening,” I say to the empty room, and a voice inside me pipes up, a small, quiet thing, saying yes it is. I feel like I’m in shock, and I’m not sure I’m not. Last night with Cyrus — Cerberus...
The dog! It hits me like a lightning bolt and I shove my clothing on, bursting out of the door so fast that I nearly run over Elenora.
“Miss,” she’s startled, her eyes wide, a pile of freshly laundered and folded towels in her arms. “I was just coming to see to your room--“ Do vampires do laundry? Nevermind.
“Thank you, it’s fine,” I blurt out. “I’ll make my own bed.” I race down the stairs, and down below, Shay is there, standing with Hadrion. He’s looking down over his club, the lights on but no one, not even the staff, inside it to clean it up. He turns slowly as my feet hit the bottom of the stairs.
“You lied to me!” I snap at him, stalking toward him. “That dog on the pier wasn’t a stray!” Shay lifts her hands to her lips, and I can tell she’s smothering a laugh. Hadrion looks at her, his eyes narrowing.
“What the hell did you actually tell her?” He asks, before looking back at me with a sigh. “No, he wasn’t a stray. Of all the things you’ve learned in the last hour, and that’s what you’re focusing on?”
“That is a lie, by omission,” I say, ignoring him. “But why? Why would you lie to me?” I feel a sharp pain in my heart, a sudden realization that I’m not sure I want the answer to my question.
“To keep you safe, to protect you, why else does anyone to lie to someone else? I can guarantee your family never was honest with you, not if they sent you out into the world with that around your neck,” he says, pointing to my necklace. I’m only a few feet from him, and his eyes linger on it, a haunted sort of hunger in his expression that has me concerned.
“What is it?”
“It’s a key, I told you,” Shay speaks for the first time since I came boiling down the stairs.
“To the Underworld,” I reply, glancing between her and Hadrion, Hades, whatever the hell his name is. “Where you’re the ruling god--“
“I prefer ‘benevolent dictator’,” he mutters, almost to himself, and Shay rolls her eyes, giving me a look as if to saymen.
“So you’re Hades,” I say, “and that dog was Cerberus, is Cyrus.”
“The most powerful beings of the underworld,” Shay says, “all the way up here, and trapped.”
