Page 24 of Merciless
“So how long do I have here?”
“That depends.” The god removed his hands from his pockets to clasp them behind his back. “You can enter your childhood home now.” He nodded at the cabin behind me. “And you will no longer be on the doorstep of death, but in its realm completely. Your mortal soul will leave your body, and there is no coming back.”
“And if I don’t?”
Hades looked at me gravely. “Then you have until the damage to your body becomes too extensive to repair.”
“So probably not long,” I concluded.
Hades shrugged. “You have surprised me before. I wouldn’t rule it out again.”
I looked back at my front door, the flood of memories pouring in more clearly than ever. Mom got so mad when my siblings and I ran in and out of the house and left the door open when it was hot. I tried to sneak girls into my bedroom a couple times, but that damn door always had a loud creak in a certain spot.
“Will I see them again?” I asked Hades, still staring at the door.
“You may,” he said as a non-answer.
I looked back at him. “Care to elaborate?”
“The underworld is not aplace,Reaper. It is a state of being.” He walked up to stand next to me, his gaze on the door. “I can assure you rest and peace in your next phase of existence. But whether you see your past loved ones again, or if you even remember them?” He turned to face the canyon behind us. “That I have no control over.”
“Wait…what?” I followed after him as he began his leisurely walk toward the horizon. “What do you mean by that?”
“You may pass by your father Nolan one day,” Hades said, tilting his face up toward the sky. “But you may be a seed carried by the wind, while he may be a spine on a cactus. Now, does a seed know it’s a seed?” He looked at me over his shoulder, his expression amused. “And does a cactus know it’s a cactus?”
“What the fuck?” I raked my fingers back through my hair. “Are you telling me that all that hippie bullshit about becoming trees and shit is real? Ugh.” I scrubbed my hands down over my face. “Fuck it. I don’t wanna die after all.”
Hades returned his gaze to the horizon. “What you want doesn’t matter.”
“Right, it’s all inevitable. The circle of life or whatever. Everything happens when it’s supposed to. Just let me come to terms with the disappointment that there’s no hell for me to throw beers back with my fathers.”
“I used to think everything happened as it was meant to,” Hades scoffed. “I believed that for millenia. It’s different when you’re a god coming to terms with your own demise.”
“Oh, you’re gonna die too? Perfect.”
“Everything will. Even the Sha.” Hades started to look wistful. “Ideas and concepts don’t exist if there’s no one left capable of thinking them.”
“Well, that’s not comforting at all.” I gave him a hard look. “What’ll happen to my family?”
“If the Sha is not stopped soon, all of humanity will perish in the violence it brings. You, the ones we’ve bonded, were our last stand against the chaos coming for us all.”
My mouth went dry at his declaration. “And we’re losing.”
“It appears that way.” Hades’ tone was even, although it carried more than a hint of sadness. Maybe even regret. “We may have acted too late. A generation ago, maybe our odds would have been better. I watched over your father Finn, and almost chose him as my instrument at one point.” He gave a small shake of his head. “But there’s no use in wondering what could have been.”
“The Sha believes it won’t die when it wipes humanity off the earth. At least, that’s what it told us.”
“Naturally.” Hades didn’t sound surprised. “The Sha believes anything that favors itself.”
“Hades.” I gritted my teeth. This place suddenly felt wrong. If I couldn’t just die to be with my fathers and brother, then what was the point? “Can you wake me up?”
“No.” He angled his head toward the cabin behind me. “If you choose to cross the threshold, I’ll handle it from there. But I cannot force any being toward life or death.”
“They need me. I need to…fuck, I can’t justwaithere.”
“I believe this is similar to what the Christians call purgatory.” Hades stroked his clean-shaven jaw. “Only instead of being cleansed for heaven, you’re caught between life and death.”
“And you really can’t do anything to move the needle in either direction?”
