My Life From Hell (28 page)

“The rivers converge to trickle through here.”

“And you let me go in sandals? What if my feet melt?”

I could practically hear her indifferent shrug. “Next time, buy proper footwear.”

“You’re a real joy.” I shuffled along behind her for a bit, trying not to think about what might live in the water to feast on my toes. I kept moving. There wasn’t much more than a slight prickly heat. I didn’t feel corrosive acid eating the flesh off of my bones. “Can you tell if … well, if they’re hurting him?”

“Yes.”

“
And
?”

“They’re leaving him alone. For the time being. But that means that my sense of him is fading. So pick up the pace.”

That was the best I could hope for. A jog was more than a fair price to pay.

We continued in silence for a while. I tried not to think about how fast I’d be smushed if all this rock came crashing down on me. Or what was waiting at the other end of the cave. Mindless chatter seemed like the best plan. “Are you going to Hades’ masquerade ball?” I asked.

“Like I have a choice.” Oizys sounded totally disgusted.

Best not to mention I’d inadvertently given him the idea. I picked my way gingerly along. The water had risen to just above ankle height, and there was a eye-watering stink of dead fish. “You got a costume yet?”

“I’m not wearing one.”

“Way to take all the fun out of it.”

Oizys stopped abruptly. I stumbled into her and whacked my head on her chin when she turned to face me. We both swore.

“There is nothing fun about one of Hades’ parties,” she said, shoving me back a step. “It’s all backstabbing and plotting and secret agendas.”

I rubbed my chin. “Which is different from any other day around here, how?”

“I keep to myself,” she hissed, and she went on walking.

True. I’d noticed that. “Your anti-social tendencies trump your evil ones.” I trailed my right hand against the stone wall to keep my bearings, since Oizys held the flashlight in a low beam that only helped her.

“I’m. Not. Evil.”

She actually sounded hurt. “Sorry.”

“Do you think Kyrillos is evil? Your boyfriend is heir to this kingdom, but I don’t see that stopping you from jumping into bed with him.”

I
wasn’t jumping into bed with anyone. But I got her point. And she was right. “I think many varied things about that boy,” I muttered. “None of which have to do with his birthright.”

“Then don’t paint me with that brush.” She whipped around, momentarily blinding me with the flashlight. “You Olympians. You’re all so judgmental. So self-righteous.”

“Like Underworlders aren’t? You thought all I was good for was dancing among flowers.”

“Poor baby,” she mocked, adjusting the light so I could see the sneer on her face. “Someone thinks you’re pretty and useless. Cry me a river. You don’t have everyone automatically assuming you’re evil.”

With that, she stormed deeper into the tunnel.

I stood there, the fetid water swirling around my feet. Maybe, sometimes, I could be judgmental. Even if I was, weren’t we all? Did that make it all right? If anyone had asked me, I would have said that Hades’ gang was evil and Zeus’, what? Good? Less evil? Opposite, somehow.

I took a few faltering steps forward. Oizys had sounded hurt. Like this actually mattered.

I guess it wasn’t that black and white.

I sloshed along until I’d caught up with her again. “Is that why you like Prometheus? Because he doesn’t judge you?”

“Isn’t it why you like him, too?”

I didn’t know about Prometheus, but Theo hadn’t. Did we spare the people we loved? No, because I certainly laid a whopper of a judgement on Hannah. I squirmed, self-loathing and guilt rearing their ugly twin heads in a bitter knot in my stomach. I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. I sped up. “You need a costume for the ball.”

“Maybe I’ll borrow your clothes and go as you.”

I snorted out my laughter. That was unexpected.

Oizys turned, balancing the light so she could see my expression. “You don’t care?”

I put a hand on her shoulder, trying not to double over laughing. “Care? I think it’s brilliant. Can I do your make up?”

Oizys stared at me like I was insane, but I distinctly heard an amused, “Maybe” before she disappeared around a corner and made what sounded like a smothered yelp.

My adrenaline spiked and I stupidly ran after her. I flew into the next section of tunnel, made it about three feet in, and dropped like a dead weight into nothingness.

Seventeen

At first I screamed. And then a howling drowned out the sounds and storm winds battered me against the cave walls like a bouncy ball.

It. Hurt.

Also, I was wet, and trying very hard not to think about all the grossness in the water that drenched me. I was tumbling down a hole, alongside the river, where it turned into a waterfall.

I called up my vines and fired one toward the walls. Luckily, the light held against the wet stone, and I could control my descent to Oizys. I fired another vine down into the gloom and prayed for a hit.

“Ouch!”

“I got you.” Carefully, I lowered myself down with one hand and reeled her toward me with the other.

She was flailing on her end of the line, the vibrations making it that much harder to keep my descent steady in the gale force wind that whipped up the tunnel. My knee banged a sharp outcropping of rock. “Stop struggling,” I yelled. “You’re causing tension.”

“It’s the wind. I’m getting seasick,” she said, when I managed to pull even with her.

A gust swung us right under the waterfall. I swung us out again as fast as I could, but not before we were both sputtering noxious water. “Try not to get this stuff in your mouth,” I said.

“No kidding.” She looked a little queasy so I picked up the pace.

The beam of the flashlight pointed down, so I could see we were maybe fifty feet from the ground. Bright flashes of lightning lit the way as I lowered us to the exit below. Talking was impossible. The winds were so strong and so loud that it was all I could do to keep us moving.

I focused on descending inch by painful inch, as the wind smacked us against the wet walls, and blew our faces into crazy funhouse mirror distortions. What should have taken seconds, took about ten minutes. Oizys lost her grip on the flashlight, and it hit the ground, going out. Not that it mattered, since we still had the lightening.

I glanced down to check our progress and realized that what I had mistaken for the bottom of the tunnel was just a ledge of rock with an exit to the outside. The tunnel continued downward to the left of the ledge, the water roaring down the canyon alongside. I had to land us on terra firma or risk continuing on to who-knew-where, along with the nasty river water.

We hit the ground in a bumpy heap.

I had never loved dirt so much.

We were bruised, wet, filthy, and judging by the scene outside the cave entrance, about to find ourselves in the midst of a violent storm.

I tested my limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken but everything hurt.

Oizys and I exchanged glances. Then she tipped her head toward to the entrance and raised her eyebrows, in question.

I nodded.
Here goes nothing.

We got to our feet. Bracing our shoulders against the wind, we pushed our way out of the cave.

It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so terrifying. Above me, streak of purple and black smashed against each other, while lightning snaked in jerky tendrils. I could only stare at it through slitted eyes. There was too much dirt flying around.

I tugged the collar of my shirt over my nose and mouth, against the twin scents of sulphur and electrical dust. I held it in place with my right hand, and hurried to take in our surroundings.

We stood at the edge of a vast pitted crater. All around us, the sides curved toward the sky. We were like ants against this vast backdrop of destruction.

And anguish. Did I mention the anguish?

The wind literally wailed. The air felt charged with an electric despair, so entrenched, so heavy, that every step was like trudging through a misery swamp. The wind would have severely tested the foundation of even the strongest building. But there was nothing to knock down. Only Oizys and me, as we struggled from boulder to boulder, bent double, looking for Prometheus.

The ground rumbled beneath us.

We grabbed on to each other for support, riding the quake out like a wave. Once it had subsided, we edged closer to the center of the crater, one eye out for the hundred-handed giants.

The next blast of lightning lit a rock formation. Prometheus’ chain bound him to the middle stone. But this time, the chain seemed to be made of fire, which was a new trick, and had to majorly suck for him.

Oizys and I broke cover and dashed for the rocks.

Prometheus’ stone was a wide, fat slab, like a sacrificial table that had been tilted upward at about a forty-five degree angle. His clothes hung off him in tatters, his flesh raw and blistered from the flaming restraints. Luckily, he was unconscious.

I wanted to throw up.

I tried using my power to free him from the chain, but neither Oizys nor I could do anything to break it. We couldn’t even put out the flames, burning hot and fierce against his skin.

Suddenly, Oizys grabbed my shoulder and yanked me down behind the stone table. She pointed to the left. The giants Briareos, Kottos, and Gyes lumbered down one side of the crater with ground-quaking steps.

I craned my neck up to see the tops of these enormous creatures. Simply put, they were massive. Like a condo developer would have killed to build on their heads, just for the view. And I do mean heads.

Fifty of them.

Each.

Not to mention their hundred hands each. I lost count at forty-three on the first one.

I had to yell directly into Oizys’ ear to be heard over the noise of the storm. “Now what? We can’t free Prometheus. There’s no way we can get him back up that tunnel, especially unconscious, and no way grabby and his brothers won’t see us if we move.”

The monstrosities neared, the expressions on their faces ranging from hideous leers to sneering smirks. My God, they were ugly. How fortunate that they were so large that I could see every single boil, snotty nose, and grimy finger in lifelike clarity.

I must have raised myself up a little too high over the back edge of the slab—all the better to gape at the uglies—because Oizys pulled me back down, glowering.

“Get caught and I leave you for their dinner.” She sighed. “I didn’t expect the chain to be like that. We can’t take Prometheus until we find a way to unbind him without hurting him.”

Or killing him. That’s what she really meant. I didn’t want to leave Prometheus. But she was right. His best hope was for us to get out of here and find something that could unbind him. Not just break the chain but do it without letting the fire consume him.

I also didn’t want to stay here because every passing second was a head trip for my psychological well-being. I could feel Persephone’s gnawing anger bristling the hairs on my skin. “Much as this place sucks,” I said, “short of getting ourselves back up that tunnel, how do you propose we get out of here?”

Oizys pointed up, toward the top of the crater where the giants had entered.

It made sense that they had their own way in and out of Tartarus. But I couldn’t see how we could sneak up there, past all those watching heads. I leaned in to voice this concern, and my head snapped back as Oizys’ fist connected with my jaw. I hurtled through the air, hit my head on a rock and everything went black.

I came to in her room, feeling like, well, I’d been bashed in the head with a rock.

Oizys perched on the metal side rail of the daybed, peering down at me. “It was the only way.”

I tried to struggle into sitting position, but the room swung with a vengeance so I gave up and stayed flat on my back. “Was that an apology? For punching me? For splitting my skull open? Because I could help you rephrase it so it sounds somewhat more … what’s the word? Apologetic.” I glowered at her, then decided that made me queasy, and closed my eyes.