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Chapter 21
Poseidon
When Apollo told me Elyse had died again, I grew furious, shaking with rage and needing to punch someone. I’d woken up in my backyard, frozen in time by X, just as Apollo and Ares had been. The bastard got us out of the way so he could take her out. We hadn’t expected him, but next time, we’d be ready.
Hades hadn’t told any of us right away, and I was sure it was some kind of trick to stop us from bringing Catina back after all.
The thing was, as eager as I’d been to believe Persephone that Hades wasn’t a real villain, it was so easy to look back to my previous beliefs and decide that Hades meant for this to happen. Why else would he not tell us right away Elyse died? Why not tell us the moment she lost another life? And how had she perished? Everyone said it had been an accident, but I was starting to wonder if Hades had been involved. All we heard was that he’d saved her, but I had doubts over his intentions.
Yes, it was unfair of me. But old habits died hard, and Hades didn’t make it easy for anyone to think well of him.
We all congregated at Heracles’s place. He was willing to host us while we prepared to go to the Underworld. But even though Hades wouldn’t be with us, Heracles refused to accompany us.
I didn’t blame him. He’d performed his twelve acts of valor, and he survived Hera’s attacks. None of us expected him to get involved in a fight that had nothing to do with him.
“Don’t get stuck in the Asphodel Meadows. There, you’re not going to remember anything about the life you have on Earth. You’ll forget everything you’ve ever fought for and not see a reason to leave.” Heracles was trying to break down the Underworld to Elyse. We all knew what it was like down there—at least, we understood the concept. None of us gods had actually been there, aside from Heracles.
But Elyse had been there according to Heracles, except he hadn’t taken her deep into the Underworld, not over the river. And the Greek myths were taught in school didn’t exactly cover the layout of the Underworld. No human could really know what it was like since the souls that went to there never returned.
“What do I do?” Elyse asked. “Get across the river, and then…?”
“You have to get past that god-awful dog of Hades’s, but I think you should be okay, as he only goes after the dead,” Heracles continued. “And then you should be able to enter Hades’s home. He lives on neutral ground. That’s where X will be hiding—if he takes Catina anywhere else, she dies. And for that same reason, as long as you’re close to one of the gods, Elyse, you should be okay until you reach that safe ground.”
X had found a loophole in the Underworld. It was understandable; he lived there. We were the ones who hadn’t taken the time to find out what it was like, to know if it was plausible he’d even be able to take a living human down to hell.
“We’ve got it covered,” Ares stated, staring out the window.
He was dressed for war, wearing his armor, his leather, his sword. Next to me, Apollo also wore his leather, his body draped with weapons. We had to travel down there, retrieve Catina, and get back up here without any incident. I didn’t want Elyse involved in any more fighting than absolutely necessary.
And knowing X, he planned on just that.
“Hey,” Heracles called to Elyse, putting his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“How do you know?” Elyse wondered, and doubt threaded her voice.
“Because I know you. I’ve watched you and your family for years. I know who you are and what you’re capable of. You need to believe in yourself now.”
Elyse eyes narrowed, though the lines across her brow told me she worried a lot. Heracles had been there since the beginning, and she trusted him. He could convince her better than any of the rest of us could.
“Are we ready?” I asked when everyone was dressed and had their weapons strapped on. Ares was practicing his punching moves. Elyse had two swords crossed on her back and her scythe in her hand. She also wore a dark outfit, but it wasn’t leather. Rather, the outfit offered her a bit of protection—it had supernatural material from Olympus woven by Athena, not too different than a bulletproof vest that would keep her safe from at least one blow of something serious before she’d have to deal with the aftermath.
Elyse had never felt the need to fight with armor before, but she was destabilized now. Her magic remained a little out of control, and she was aware of how vulnerable it made her. I wished we had more time for her to train, to become comfortable with her new magic.
But this was exactly what X had intended. To strip her of power, the ability she controlled. He’d taken the risk her new energy might be something she’d use against him and it had paid off.
But she wasn’t going down there alone. We were all with her, and we were angry as fuck. Nothing was going to happen to her, not on our watch.
We’d suggested she take at least a little longer to recover after her death, but she had refused. And I understood—Catina’s time was running out. X wouldn’t keep her alive forever.
“Let’s go,” Apollo said, turning to Ares and me.
“I tried to find a way to join you, but Zeus has forbidden it.” Heracles’s gaze fell momentarily. “Good luck,” he mumbled before we left his house.
I took Elyse’s hand and the four of us vanished out of Chicago, reappearing in a cloudy mist, suspended in the sky.
The Underworld didn’t have an entrance the way a lot of the Greek mythologies suggested. In the days of old, everyone had though there were entrances and exits to hell. But it was much simpler than that. All we had to do to get there was descend. I held Elyse’s hand tighter while Ares took her other one, and when we descended, she came with us. Along with Apollo.
Immediately, we arrived on the banks of the River Styx. The black water rippled as if a breeze sailed over its surface. The river stretched outward as far as I could see, and directly across from us stood the side we needed to reach. Charon, the ferryman, sat on a chair looking out over the dark water. We were in a cabin made of stone, the gray slate on the walls smooth and slick with condensation.
