Page 21 of On a Pale Horse
“Cloris wait, how do you know this the right way?”
He couldn’t see her, only feel the air stir with her movements.
“Don’t you feel it?”
He shook his head but remembered she likely couldn’t see him either. “No, I don’t feel anything.”
Cloris snatched his outstretched hand and led him behind her. “There is something this way. I don’t know how to explain it, but like Anubis said, half dead or half alive. I’m not certain. Everything in me is telling me to get there and escort those souls where the belong. They are dead but animated, shells of people with souls still attached.”
She swallowed so heavily he could hear the gulp even over his own frantic heartbeat. He brushed her arm in time to feel her shudder.
“Let’s get this over with,” he whispered, clutching her hand tighter and letting her lead him. It concerned him he couldn’t feel what she felt. That while he once was the Lord of the Dead, that was no longer true. Maybe he was simply an immortal man. Now if he could only figure out how to sever his aura, then he might be okay with that.
A flicker of light broke through the darkness ahead, and Hades had to keep himself from sprinting toward it. The thick layer of sand on the ground made it slow going, and when they finally reached the light, it opened into a large antechamber. Statues surrounded the room and in the center one man stood next to an altar. Beside him, lay a small figure tied up and a set of gold scales coated in layers of sand and dust.
Once they were within sight of the man, he held out a dagger, point toward Cloris. “Stop where you are, I am simply to deliver a message.”
Three more of his kind marched in and stood next to him, weapons also drawn. Closer to the creatures now, Hades could feel the wrong pouring off them. Their souls somehow in and out of their bodies. These humans forever trapped in between. In limbo.
Cloris released his hand and stepped forward. “Then deliver it.”
The man shook his head. The dim light casting shadows over his withered cheekbones. “Not to you, Death. But to Hades.”
Hades wanted to step back, turn, and run. He’d never been a coward, but he had a feeling the message wasn’t something he wanted to hear.
“The Goddess Hel is returning your girlfriend, even though she wanted to execute her. She also leaves these scales for you to take. She says they are down payments for your return to the Underworld. You have seventy-two hours to show yourself at her gates or she will unleash theEinherjarupon the world.”
Hades stood immobile. This was her end game. She was going to end the world, with or without the Horseman, if she couldn’t have him.
Cloris gripped his hand so tightly it threatened to cut off circulation, but he didn’t care. He held hers back just as tight, hoping it conveyed everything he wanted to say, everything he felt for her.
Cloris stood her ground against the creature. Her tone took a steely edge, amplified by her own power. Something he rarely ever saw. “You have two seconds to walk away before I kill every one of you where you stand, I don’t care if youarealready dead. I’ll bring you back to life only to suck every remaining breath from your body.”
Her strength, the way she stood up for him, took his breath away. How could he have been gifted such a woman? But…
He pulled her toward him and whispered, “If I don’t go and she destroys the world…”
Cloris shook her head, never taking her eyes off the soldiers. “Then she creates her perfect kingdom full of the dead, without you, and she will ensure the Horseman are destroyed in the process.”
Cloris stepped forward again, but the soldier matched her advance. “Only Hades can accept these gifts.”
Hades had some colorful words about Hel’s idea of gifts but sensing Cloris’s tension over the figure on the alter he approached and stripped away the hood. Persephone’s face appeared unharmed, but Hades was well versed in the psychological torture Hel could inflict.
He grabbed the scales and held them out to Cloris to take, then he lifted Persephone’s small form from the alter and backed away from the soldiers. “Tell her I’ll come, and she’ll regret it.”
The soldier bowed, and then darkness engulfed the room again. Cloris reached for him and they materialized in their bedroom once more.
“That seemed entirely too easy,” Cloris said, as he lowered Persephone to their bed and untied the knots. Of course, they were intricate, and Cloris stepped forward, producing a knife from one of her pockets and cutting the ropes in a few powerful swipes.
He watched her fold the knife away and then eased Persephone’s skin where it had been abraded.
Hades shook himself back to the task and off the lovely juxtaposition of Cloris and Persephone’s skin. “I agree. There is no way Hel is just going to hand over things.”
Cloris finally stepped away from Persephone, who lay on the bed staring at the ceiling. Her eyes drifting in and out of focus.
Cloris grabbed his shoulders hard. “And there is no way you are going down there either. I don’t care what she threatens.”
Hades drew Cloris into his arms. The entire time, from the moment they left, to the moment they returned, his heart had been taped to his throat. They’d been facing a lot of crazy lately, and he feared the worst when he saw Hel’s soldier. She didn’t matter, only Cloris mattered.
