Page 48 of Deadly Games
The crying ceased and the cloaked woman went unnaturally still. For a moment, I wondered if her movement had been an illusion, but when she turned around, her pale face set in the mask of grief I’d seen on stone angels outside of cemetery gates, I realized she was no trick of the light. Black tears streamed down her face, and she seemed to be holding herself from an injury.
I went forward, pushing aside my fear but not my caution. Underworld or not, I wasn’t going to leave someone suffering on the side of the road. “It’s alright,” I said, approaching her carefully. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
The woman stared blankly at me for a moment, as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. When I took another step and reached out to help her up, her normal features turned into a ghastly snarl and fangs like knives grew from her pasty lips as she let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Someone grabbed me from behind and yanked me back just in time to pull me from the path of her gnarled claws. I barely had time to notice it was Dionysus before she grabbed him and flung him across the desert sand until he hit another cliff.
“Dionysus!” I cried, lunging for his unconscious form only to be thrown back by a sudden gust of wind. I looked up from the ground and realized the monstrous creature had sprouted tattered black wings from her back. Her wingspan was so great that each time she struck her wings, the resulting gust made it almost impossible to stand.
“What the fuck,” Loki growled, pulling a blade from his pocket. It grew within his grasp, the surface glimmering with blue light. “What is that thing?”
“I have no idea,” I muttered, struggling to form a vine with no environmental energy to draw from. That meant I was tapping into my own resources, but for the moment, I didn’t have a choice.
The monster shrieked as Loki charged her, piercing her side with his blade. She caught hold of it and let out another bellow right at him. The sound made my eardrums pop and Loki went flying.
I managed to stay on my feet, but the next blast knocked me onto my back. My head struck a stone behind me and my vision went black for a second. By the time I could see properly, the creature was hovering over me. Instead of feet, she had talons as sharp as her claws, and they were all poised to pierce me like knives. I threw up my arm to shield myself, but the tip of a blade pierced the center of her chest before she had the chance to finish her attack.
The creature let out her most deafening scream yet, a sound that curdled blood and quaked bone. I shuddered at the sound of it and watched the life, if it could be called that, drain from her hollow eyes.
Her body hit the ground, and I found myself staring up at Hades. My heart was still pounding, not the least of all because he was here. He was alive and by all appearances, Cronus hadn’t harmed him. On the other hand, Fenrir wasn’t with him…
“They send me a Queen who can’t even get past the outer ring without getting herself killed,” he scoffed, his gruff tone belying the relief in his gaze.
“Shut up,” I said, taking his hand to get back on my feet. I wrapped my arms around him before he could pull away and squeezed tight. “Don’t make me regret coming to rescue your smug ass.”
“Who needs rescuing?” he taunted, nonetheless returning my embrace. To my relief, Dionysus was already back on his feet, a little dazed but no worse for the wear. Loki was limping toward us.
“Could’ve showed up a little sooner,” he quipped.
“Why the fuck would you bring her here?” Hades demanded, turning on him. He glanced down at me. “Howdidyou get here, anyway?”
“Hermes,” I answered. “By the way, we owe him a favor when you take over.”
“Of course we do.” Hades shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, but thinking we’re ready to take him on was a mistake.”
“What happened?” Dionysus asked, brushing the sand off his clothes. “And what was that thing that attacked us?”
“That was an Empusa. They masquerade as women in distress to trap their prey, and they feed on human flesh,” Hades answered, glancing around. “The outlands are full of them.”
Dionysus grimaced. “Guess we haven’t gotten to that part of the textbook on cryptids.”
“Where is Fenrir?” I asked, needing to know the answer to that before anything else. Something in the way Hades hesitated filled me with dread, but I wouldn’t let myself believe anything had happened to him. The connection between us was too strong. I would have felt it.
“My father put an enchantment on him,” Hades answered, his words heavy with shame. “He tried to protect me, and he got turned to stone.”
“Stone?” I echoed in disbelief, my mind racing as I struggled to make sense of the news. “But if it’s an enchantment, it’s reversible, right?”
“As long as my father is alive and wielding the Grim Scepter, the enchantment is irrevocable,” Hades said, his expression as sullen as his voice.
“Then we kill him, like we planned,” I said firmly.
“You don’t understand,” Hades snapped. “He’s looking for you. That’s why he brought us here in the first place.”
“Because of Thor?” I asked.
“No. He said he knows who you are.”
I frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”
