Page 52 of Midlife Demigod Unexpected

I looked around the cavern. There were three doors leading out from it.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“We take them together, one at a time.”

“Isn’t this where cops usually say let’s split up and cover more ground faster?”

“Do you want to walk through one of those doors on your own?” Chloe asked.

“Not in the slightest,” I responded.

“Come on, let’s go,” Chloe said. She picked the first opening on the left and we walked through it to a cave passageway. It was dark and narrow. The ceiling was low. It was clearly a channel, but it didn’t feel like it had been built by human hands. it was a little too round as if the water itself had cut the channel into the rock.

The floor was sandy, as though water had flushed it out.

Realization dawned on me just as a roaring sound filled the air.

“Chloe turn around,” I said. “Turn around quick. This isn’t a passageway.”

“What?” she asked, immediately turning towards me.

“This is a waterway.” I gasped. A loud rumbling sound was echoing through the passageway. “That’s the sound of water rushing toward us.”

Chapter 37

Chloe and I turned and started running down the passageway heading back to the main room.

“She’s opened the portal,” I cried. “It’s too late.”

“We have to find the others,” Chloe screamed.

“We have to get covered,” I said. The water was roaring right on our heels, I could feel the rush of the wind from the push of the water flooding down the passageway as we ran. “Shift!”

As a bat, Chloe would stand a better chance of getting away from the water.

“I can’t leave you,” she said.

“Do it!“ I said. “Find the others. Get them free.”

I watched gratefully as Chloe shifted and flew in front of me. The water was still coming close behind. My hair was blowing forward from the rush of the water. I was going to have to find a place to stay. I searched the wall of the passageway, looking for a crevice to crawl into. There was a small inlet. I crawled up the side and then spied a crack in the side of the rock. It was just large enough for me to fit into and high enough for me to get my face above the water as the rushing river flooded past me, swirling and kicking up the sand and dust. I clung to the crack with my lips barely breaching the surface of the water as I gasped the stale cavern air.

My body was completely wet, covered in water, but after the initial rush, the water died down a bit and ended up in a steady flow. Good God. I didn’t even know exactly how to get out of here, but I knew I was swimming in the River Styx now and maybe there would be no chance of getting out at all.

The water died down. I took a deep breath and swam back toward the entrance of the big cavern. I ducked down into the doorway and came up in the room.

I treaded water, feeling sick to my stomach. The river was full of a bunch of dead souls. The river was making its way into the large room through the three openings. I looked up and I realized what the chamber was.

A holding tank.

The water was rising steadily. It was going to flow out from beneath the lion and into Cougar Creek.

I swam quickly toward the stairwell and crawled back up to it.

I lay at the top of the stairwell, completely drained and devastated, my body aching as if the water from the River Styx was claiming it and dragging me back down into it. Chloe had gotten away, I could only hope. Could she possibly find where they were keeping the other coven members? I had no idea. All I knew was right now I felt exceptionally drained, exhausted, and in desperate need of some level of recovery before I was able to even stand up and think straight.

“Come on, Helen, you’ve got this,” I said to myself. I pressed my face against the stone steps. The River Styx had zapped my energy. I looked at my hand waiting for the golden glow to come, but it didn’t. The River Styx had taken my magic.

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