My Life From Hell (4 page)

I peeled off my stinky outfit, turned the jets to full blast hot, and stepped under the spray. Magnificent as the shower was, it didn’t stop me feeling jittery with nerves as I made my way up to Jennifer a few minutes later.

I tried to think reassuring thoughts as I climbed the stairs. All was not yet lost. I had until spring equinox and my final showdown against Zeus and Hades to sort all this out. Kai and I were prophesied to defeat them with a love ritual that would combine our powers and allow us to seize control of their minions.
One above one below alive awake a key it is no more it is no more.

At the moment it was the last bit of that prophecy that concerned me the most. Hopefully, this was the time to find out, once and for all, if Earth and everyone on it would gone by this time next week.

All because of me.

I squinted as I stepped into bright sunshine in Jennifer’s upstairs studio. The retro vibe continued up here but instead of portraits, beautiful tattoo designs covered the walls. A massage table and small workstation sat off to one side next to a vintage wooden cabinet painted light yellow. Its two shelves held rows of ink bottles in a rainbow of colors. Below the shelves were a row of drawers, and then two large cupboard doors on the bottom. All with chrome pulls.

Jennifer motioned me over to the massage table. “Are you interested in any of my flash work or are you here for a custom piece?” She waved a hand toward her framed artwork.

“Definitely custom.” I wriggled onto the table and lifted the long, soft, green sweater she’d left for me to wear along with a pair of jeans.

She raised her eyebrows. “Nice scar.”

“Hoping I could transform it with a bouquet of black roses.” I paused. “With really sharp thorns.”

“That’s not very springlike.” The goddess pulled a piece of paper and a black colored pencil from her cabinet drawer. She nudged the drawer shut with her hip.

I let the hem of my sweater fall back down. “It’s spring with an edge,” I replied, watching her fingers fly as she sketched the flowers. “Like me.”

Jennifer made a little moue of distaste. “Well, I’d like the spring who could make my crocuses bloom, not this endlessly depressing nonsense.” She nibbled on the end of the pencil before adding a final detail to the drawing. “Think you could get on that?”

I bit my lip.

“Ah.” She gave a flicker of a smile. “Which brings us to the real reason you’re here. Beyond my fabulous artistic abilities.” She held up the picture and I nodded. A simple line drawing of black roses gathered together, thorns turned out, it managed to pulsate with energy.

And project badassery, which worked for me.

At least I hoped it would work for me because, right now, I only projected wussery. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat at the thought of discussing my visions. “I …” I shifted my weight on the table. “I’m having these disjointed visions. I’m scared of what they mean, and Festos told me your tattoos offer … clarity.”

“Easy camper,” Jennifer soothed. She rose and crossed over to a small table with what looked like a fax machine on it. “Thermal copier,” she explained at my confused look. “To make the stencil.” She lifted a piece of carbon paper from a pile next to the machine and inserted it carbon side down into the back of the copier. Then she placed the paper with the original drawing face down into the front slot.

“Technically,” she continued, “it’s not the tattoos themselves that bring clarity. It’s the process of being tattooed.” She pressed a couple of buttons and with a beep, the copier buzzed to life, pulling the drawing paper and the stencil slowly though. She cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “How do you know it’s not just bad dreams from nerves?” she asked, keeping one eye on the copier.

“Because I’m not necessarily asleep when they happen. It’s like …” I tapped my index finger against my lip, as much to get the courage to relive the experience as to figure out how to describe it. “One minute I’m doing whatever. The next I’m not. I’m still here on Earth. But there is no one else. I mean, no one. Anywhere.”

Not even Kai. Which was part of what worried me. We were in this together, so why was I flying solo in this vision? I shivered, reliving the hopelessness this vision always brought on. Seeing myself as the only one left. Knowing I must have failed somehow but not being sure of the exact fates of my friends and loved ones.

The beeping of the thermal copier startled me out of my reverie. I raised bleak eyes to Jennifer. “I want to see more. I need to see more. I need to see what happens, exactly. And how to stop it?”
Or stop myself from causing it?

Jennifer pulled the stencil paper out of the copier and tore the carbon away from the white. She looked at the resulting drawing with a critical eye, then nodded. “Clarity can be a nebulous term. It may only make the situation clearer in a universal kind of way that you won’t understand until it’s too late. Meantime, it can mess with your head.”

“What doesn’t these days?”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “You’re sure you want to know more? Because regardless of what you learn, you need to face Zeus and Hades next week.”

It no longer surprised me that Greek gods and goddesses I’d never met before knew all about me. I’d hit the Pantheon’s radar the second Kai’s kiss restored my true identity. Too bad most of them just stayed neutral in all this.

I’d resigned myself to the lack of active assistance. So long as their activities on Earth didn’t
harm
humans, we’d just stay out of each other’s business and I’d do what I had to.

“If there is any chance that this tattoo helps me avoid fatal mistakes? Absolutely.” I rubbed my finger over the leather covering the massage table and blurted out, “Spring isn’t coming. I’m terrified that I’m the reason. Because I can’t stop feeling so angry and out of control all the time. And maybe it’s just one small step between me throwing the world into this weird seasonal limbo and me destroying it altogether.”

“I’m supposed to do a love ritual with a guy who is still very,
very
angry at me. Though that doesn’t stop him from kissing me all the time. It’s a total head trip. Not to mention that various family members want me dead and my goddess self is a constant critical voice in my head.” My voice trembled.

Jennifer crossed the room and seized my wrists in her hands. I hadn’t even realized I’d been scratching again. “Breathe.” The air filled with the calming scent of vanilla. She tilted my face up to look at her. “Forget all that right now. Empty your mind, lie down, and focus on one breath at a time.”

I nodded and did as I was told, stretching out on the massage table with a wiggle of my toes. I breathed deep until my heart slowed from foot-stomping-temper-tantrum pounding to impatient-UPS-guy knocking.

Now wearing tight-fitting black latex gloves, Jennifer lifted my shirt. She picked up a spray bottle and the sharp tang of alcohol hit my nose as she misted a paper towel and thoroughly rubbed my skin. She poured some lotion from a pale blue bottle into her palm and applied that. “Stencil Stuff. To help fix the stencil,” Jennifer explained.

I squirmed, ticklish.

“Stay still,” Jennifer murmured. She placed the drawing against my side, gave it one firm press, and then peeled the stencil paper off, revealing the design outlined in purple against my skin. “Let it dry.”

“How big is the needle?” I tracked her movements anxiously as she picked up what looked like a metal pen tube attached to a small steampunkish horseshoe with spools inside it.

“It’s not the size, honey, it’s what you do with it,” Jennifer drawled, fitting a needle into the tube. “Whatever you do, don’t hold your breath.” She sat down on a stool beside me. A tiny plastic cup filled with black liquid sat on her workstation. “Fainting would be bad.”

“I won’t pass out. Fall spasming into a vision, possible. But faint? Nah.”

“Then allons-y.” Jennifer pressed down on a foot pedal. There was a buzz and she touched the needle to my skin.

Three

Fire arced across my body. I stiffened and opened my mouth in a full-on scream. The vision was back, but this time I was able to remind myself that I was safe with Jennifer in her studio. That was something.

Even though I’d never done more than stand still in the vision, this time, I felt compelled to move.

I stepped forward and recoiled as my boot heel hit a toffee-like substance. But broiling. I jerked my foot back and looked down.

The ground was an ocean of molten lava. I stood on the safety of a low, flat rock surrounded by roiling land. I watched in morbid fascination as the surface of the lava cooled slightly, hardened, then broke apart again.

The twin smells of sulphur and burning wood assaulted my nostrils. I threw an arm over my nose to block it out.

As I lifted my eyes from the lava, I realized that the smoke had cleared. For the first time ever, I saw that I was in a garden. Although it wasn’t winning any awards. Everything was dead.

Blackened. Twisted.

The ground bubbled ominously in fiery swirls, its dull crackling roar the only sound in this eerie place.

Off to one side was the only living thing. And by living, I mean barely.

It was a pomegranate tree.

Seeing the sickly tree, its branches drooping, leaves scattering to the ground, fruit shriveling and leeched of color, made me wonder. Was the reason that I was all alone not because everyone on Earth had died?

But that I had?

There was the sound of mocking laughter. Deep and rumbling, it rolled across the land like thunder. I wanted to plead with whoever it was to stop but could see no one. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the laughter stopped. A dim chant grew louder and louder until I could make out the words. “Instrument of our destruction. Instrument of our destruction.”

Terror clawed at my throat. I spun, desperate to run, desperate to get away, but lava pressed in on all sides.

It was just a vision. It couldn’t hurt me. I clung to this thought.

A blare of trumpets drowned out the chanting. Impossibly, I heard John Lennon start to croon that all I needed was love.

Nice thought, but I still wanted out.

I tried to wrench my feet free. But I was stuck fast.

The laughter was back, and it now drowned out the singing as the lava grew in force and rage to lick around my feet.

I realized there was nowhere to go.

I bolted up, disoriented by the light, until Jennifer’s wide-eyed stare, and the buzz of the tattoo machine in her hand reminded me where I was.

My skin was flushed and prickly. I had to get out of there. I scrambled off the table and ran, easily outdistancing the sound of her footsteps coming after me.

“Sophie? Hey! Hold up!”

I ignored her. I flew out her front door, leapt off the porch and, clutching my pendent before me like a cross before a vampire, ran straight into the nearest tree, thinking of Festos’ place back in Seattle.

I stumbled onto his street with my next step. Racing across the dark road, I ignored the cold damp air that seeped into the borrowed sweater and jeans I still wore. While the area was lively enough during the day, all the businesses in neighboring warehouses were now closed for the night. Alone out here, my imagination zoomed into nightmare overdrive. Fog seemed to press in on me, held at bay only by a couple of not-bright-enough-for-my-liking street lamps.

Although my hands shook like mini-earthquakes, I managed to unbolt the locks on the building’s front door and hurry inside. I slammed the door behind me, slumping back against it in relief. Adrenaline still flooded my system. My chest heaved, and I stuffed my hands into my armpits to quell the trembling.

Goosebumps covered my entire body even though the building temperature was warm. It wasn’t so much hearing the “instrument of our destruction” chant that was getting to me right now. My friend Cassie, who was a descendent of the original Oracle Cassandra had prophesied that months ago.

I’d chosen to ignore the prophecy. Since they were not guarantees and my alternative was to give up before I’d begun, it had seemed like the right decision. Plus, all the gods I’d met believed Kai and I were the ones who could take on Zeus and Hades, and have a chance of winning.