The scythe in Hades’ hands bounced recklessly as he paced the room. Persephone watched him carefully and waited for the moment that he would turn it on her. She had to stall him a little longer. She had to keep him there until she was sure that Seth and Apollo had gotten away. Once they were on the riverboat, they might have a chance to get Seth somewhere safe so he could heal, but where was safe for Seth now that Hades was a God again?
Persephone clutched her stomach and tried not to think about it.
Finally, Hades let the scythe evaporate in his hands. Then he approached Persephone on the bed and ordered, “Uncover your gut.”
She tried to do as she was told.
He tore her makeshift bandages off in his impatience and examined her wound with his nose practically touching her skin. Then he scoffed as he backed away, “You never once asked me to free you, and now you’re doing it in the most painful way possible. Why?”
“It’s the only way,” she muttered, covering her wounds with the leftover shreds of bandage. “You would never have let me go. Pretend to deny it.”
Hades narrowed his eyes hatefully. “I won’t. I just want to understand why you have never once come to me with any of your desires. Why? Why is it always someone else? Why do you always take your problems to someone else? Your mother or Apollo or... Sethos? Why can’t you ever tell me what’s wrong? Why can’t you give me the chance to make you happy? You never even talk to me!”
“How could I talk to you?” she whispered. “Nothing about this arrangement was discussed with me. I don’t care that my mother didn’t give her blessing to our union. You didn’t ask me. When you broke through the mountain, you could have asked me to come with you. You could have asked me to be your bride.”
“You wouldn’t have accepted.”
“And you wonder why I didn’t ask you to let me go. We have always been at odds, you and me. Why even bother discussing it?”
He hid his face by turning it into a shadow.
“I can’t go to you with anything because you defile my very existence—the creation of innocence—and imprison me in the place where everything I cherish is desecrated. You wanted to control the balance of power, but I can’t play both sides. If I don’t reject you with all my heart I will not be the Goddess of Fertility. And no matter what you want, you can’t play both sides either. You can’t stop trying to break me down, decompose me. The longer I stay with you the hotter my rebellion becomes. I will do anything to depart this place and never return.”
He turned his face to the light. His eyes burned her like splattering lava. “And my love for you is meaningless?”
“Rape is hate. It has nothing to do with love,” she said evenly, not allowing herself to feel scorched.
His shoulders fell and his expression became sorrowful. “And I can never prove that my love for you is real?”
“Never,” she said unrelentingly.
“Why not?”
“Because you only regard me as a way to lighten your load. Just as many people are born into the world as die. That means that the number of souls requiring your attention here is the exact number of souls I send down to Gaia. Who helps you with the work of judging them? Me. Who helps me with the work of preparing them? Not you. My mother lends a hand whenever I am gone from Olympus, but she has her own work to do and a great deal is left for me. Besides, there is no real rush to judging souls like there is in preparing infants. There’s no heated romance that gets overplayed or people praying for conception. Here, timing is unimportant. When I do my work on Olympus, timing is everything and because I’m only there for six months of the year, I’m forced to do double duty, except for now when I’m playing truant.” She paused from her tirade and glanced at a timepiece on the wall. Now she was positive that enough time had lapsed for Apollo to remove Seth.
Hades absorbed what she said with his jaw clenched and his chest heaving.
She didn’t care. She let her eyes flutter closed. “Hades, the damage is already done and the pain is overwhelming. I’m done talking.”
“You think I’ll let you off this easily?” he demanded, grabbing her by the elbow and jolting her into a sitting position. He forced her green eyes to stare into his red ones and continued, “You have never mentioned any of these grievances before.”
“We’ve already discussed this. There was no point. You wouldn’t have wanted to help me. It’s against your nature, just like me living as a Goddess of the Underworld is against mine. Go ahead. Tell me you would have helped me.”
“I can’t help with conceiving souls. It’s against my nature,” he conceded through clenched teeth, “but I would have liked to understand your perspective.”
She narrowed her eyes and said, “Which is something you haven’t sought since the beginning.”
Then he shook her wildly and the violence of it tore open her healing wound afresh. “When are you going to forgive me for that?” he bellowed. “When will I have your forgiveness for that one time?”
“It hasn’t been just once,” she choked, fighting against the pain in her gut. “If I kept marks on a wall like a prisoner counting the days in jail, how many would there be? I ask you: how many would there be?”
Hades was stunned. It was clear he didn’t know.
Persephone didn’t either, but there had been enough times to warrant her rage.
He let go of her and turned back into the room while she wept and used the bedclothes to soak up her blood.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked callously.
“You shouldn’t shake an injured woman like that.”
“And what? Am I supposed to nurse you better? I should slice you in half for the wound you’ve put in my heart.”
Persephone returned his heartless stare with hers and coldly said, “Knock yourself out.” Then she grabbed a coin off her dressing table and shoved it in her mouth, placing it under her tongue.
She let her spirit take flight and let her body fall limp. Flying, she made her way up to the mouth of the river, her soul moving so fast that she was almost out of the palace when she heard Hades’ scream. He hadn’t expected her to do that. He’d probably abandoned Rylan’s body for good, since he lacked a convenient, immortal place holder.
She just had to get Charon to take her back down the river to the pool where her friends were waiting for her. She spat the coin into her hand.
Excellent. She was still one move ahead of Hades. Juliet’s body was probably enjoying something indescribably fattening that was one hundred percent against Fiona’s diet.
***
Juliet opened her eyes. She was propped up on a wooden deck chair by the side of the pool. The gray fog still filled the air and the ferry to the Underworld still swayed in the pool. Apparently, Charon had stayed to watch her gain consciousness in Juliet’s body before leaving. She saw the edge of his lip twitch into a half smile as he lifted his pole and shoved off from the edge of the pool.
Her body felt strange. Even though it was her immortal body that had been cut, her soul had to be present for the surgery to be effective. She knew this. There shouldn’t have been any difference when she took Juliet’s body, but it didn’t feel right. Her body was uncut and should have felt perfectly healthy, but she didn’t feel the perfect fit she had before. There was an unearthly trembling in her stomach. Her spirit knew she was wounded. Even though the pain was gone, the knowledge was still there.
Putting her feet on the floor, she checked on Fiona. Her eyelids were flickering violently as Halona held her head in her lap.
“Is she going to make it back?” the twin asked nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Juliet said in an authoritative tone. “It’s a matter of practice. Once she’s done this a time or two, she’ll be able to take instant possession. The most important thing is not to panic. Be soothing. Relax and give her more time. If she keeps having trouble, I’ll guide her soul back myself, but it shouldn’t come to that. Your psychic connection should be enough.”
Halona nodded.
Juliet knew Fiona understood what she had to do, so it was fine to leave them alone.
The next thing Juliet needed to do was to check on Seth. He was splayed out on the deck by the edge of the water. His cut was worse than she thought when she saw Hades strike him down, and his golden blood had made a mess of him. There was nothing she could do for him at this point. There was no medication or treatment for the immortal. They simply had to experience the pain until they healed on their own. Except her, who played the coward by leaving her body to endure it alone, not just the pain, but whatever Hades saw fit to do with her body after her consciousness was gone.
What could she do for Seth? After everything he had done, she was in such awe of him that she wanted to bow down in front of him.
On the deck beside him, Nixie attempted to smother his wounds with towels while he pushed her away. “I’m not bleeding anymore,” he growled. “And I don’t want you to touch me.”
“But…” Nixie pleaded.
“Persephone,” he hollered, looking directly into her eyes like he saw her soul. “Close the gate to the river. Now!”
Juliet didn’t hesitate, even though she had reason to be ashamed. She should have thought to do that herself. Closing the gate would make it harder for Hades to pursue them. She snatched the towel from Nixie. Dropping to her hands and knees, she scrubbed the blood and her name off one portion of the circle. When the witches saw what she was doing, they grabbed towels and worked with her until it was all rubbed off.
The fog in the room dissipated until the lights hanging from the ceiling shone clearly. Soon everything was as it had been before Juliet had opened the gate.
“All done?” Seth questioned weakly. It had been too much effort for him to yell.
“All done,” she replied softly.
“Excellent,” he muttered and then he rolled into the water with a splash.
“What happened?” Nixie asked quietly, clutching a second towel stained with gold blood.
Juliet looked around the room. It seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind. She guessed Seth and Apollo didn’t have time to tell them before she got there, and now she had to answer their questions. That was the last thing she wanted to do . Every fiber of her being wanted to dive into the pool after Seth. She had to hold him and tell him of her gratitude for everything he had done, but he had drifted all the way to the bottom of the pool. It was deep. Could she even reach him before her air ran out? This was one of those moments when she felt the sting of duty. Even if the Occult’s Addict didn’t realize it, their actions that night made them her worshipers and she couldn’t turn her back on those who followed her.
“Come here. I’ll tell you,” she invited kindly while she stifled her instinct to bury herself in the pool.
Juliet took a perch on a deck chair. Just as she sat down, Fiona stirred.
“Wow,” she breathed. “That was one wild ride.”
“Did you like that?” Juliet asked, still maintaining her facade of control.
“Yeah,” she said, before she fell back into Halona’s arms.
“Good, because I’m going to need you to do it again.”
Blanche groaned. “You weren’t able to get all the seeds?”
“No, but we got two. Hades discarded Rylan’s body and came to the Underworld and caught us. Tomorrow, if some of you want to visit Taylor, it will be very interesting to find out if Rylan is dead or if Hades was able to use a marker like I did.”
“Couldn’t he give Rylan his body back?” Tawnee asked.
Juliet was a little taken-aback. “I suppose it’s not impossible. The God of the Underworld has powers I have not seen. He and I have never let each other entirely into our own worlds.”
A hush fell over the room, but was quickly brightened by Paulo who was scavenging around the refreshment table cursing that there was no liquor and wearing his favorite swarthy disguise. “You made me do all that work and you’re not even going to buy me a drink?” he scorned.
The party continued as everyone listened to Juliet explain what happened in the Underworld, but Seth stayed under water for the rest of the gathering. After everyone’s curiosity was satisfied, all the guests went home and Nixie went up to bed, Juliet sat on the diving board and watched Seth’s dark figure at the bottom of the pool. He didn’t swim, but drifted on his back with one hand over his torso and the other extended. His eyes stayed closed, or at least Juliet thought they did. It was difficult to tell through the movement on the water’s surface. She leaned forward until she was on her stomach and touched the water with her fingertips, pretending she was touching him. She had done a lot of that in the last thousand years. It calmed her.
Eventually, her body tired. She rose and went up to the fourth floor. She couldn’t stay up all night to watch over him. Nothing could kill him and Juliet’s body had been through too much to withstand the fatigue any longer.
In Seth’s room, there were boxes and plastic bags of her things. Nixie had brought them over. Ignoring her clothes, she pulled a black dress shirt from Seth’s dresser and did up the buttons. The cuffs fell over her hands, so she undid them. Then she slid into his bed and realized something surprising. Seth had never slept in it. She knew he slept in his tub, so the bed wasn’t where he did his dreaming. He left no mark on his bed. It was nothing more than a piece of furniture.
Taking to her feet, she went to his hot tub and slid into the salty water.
She didn’t know if she’d be able to sleep there, but she’d certainly try.
***
“You fill me with unease.”
Juliet roused herself. She had not lit any of the candles in the room, but when her eyes fluttered open, she saw that all of them were lit and glowing. Seth stood fully dressed and soaking wet on the bathmat in front of her. His shirt was unbuttoned and his wound was exposed.
He needed his tub.
“I’ll get out,” she said, moving out of his way.
“No,” he said as he peeled his shirt off and then stepped barefoot into the water with her. “I want you close to me,” he explained as he lowered himself beside her. It was a large tub and there was more than enough room for two. He sat beside her and put his arm behind her head to cushion it from the edge of the tub while he rested his on the wall. “But perhaps you shouldn’t sleep here. When you find yourself drifting off, please retire to the bed. I made it up especially for you.”
“You could have left it the way it was. After you made it, it didn’t even feel like it was yours.”
“It isn’t mine. It’s yours. It wasn’t put in this room for my comfort. It was put there for you. I have no need for a bed.”
“Ah, but you didn’t think I would ever show up.”
He paused. “Back then, I hoped you wouldn’t.”
When he didn’t continue, she urged him on. “And how do you feel about me after tonight?”
“I wish I could be more to you, like your lover or you husband, but tonight I see how much you need me in the position I’m in. I never imagined that your need was so desperate. Even if things get worse, even if Hades breaks in through the wall this minute, I’ll stand by you. You deserve loyalty from at least one person. It’ll be me.”
A muscle tugged at Juliet’s bottom lip. The feeling that overwhelmed her was the breathless longing of what she wanted more than anything else in the world—Seth’s heart—Seth’s real heart. She wanted to give him her heart. Did he feel her heart when he tasted her blood? She asked him.
“I can’t drink your goddess blood,” he refuted without skipping a beat. “It hurts my mouth. The impressions I get when I bite you burn. Ripping you apart is torture. I want to put you back together, make you whole and let you grow.”
Her eyes were getting hot and her mouth dry. She couldn’t speak. She could only fend off her tears and give all her attention to the words coming out of his mouth.
“And I want to see what else you have in store for me. I want to know the rest of the story.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“I want to feel the rest of the story,” he said turning her so he could look into her eyes and see the emotion there. “Your words are only half a story and I want all of it, so we must continue it until I remove every last speck of Hades from you.”
***
The next day was Sunday.
Part way through the night, Seth had insisted she go sleep in the bed because he wanted to rest more completely, which he could do better if he were submerged. So, she got out and covered herself in a white dress shirt. She slept easily, but she awoke when Seth got dressed and left his room to talk to Chas after he got home from the police station.
Phones had been ringing and buzzers buzzing off and on for hours. Juliet huddled in Seth’s bed and pretended to sleep, but how could she sleep with all that racket?
Finally, she came out of the bedroom like a zombie and fell onto the couch.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Seth asked pleasantly, sitting next to her.
She rubbed the guck from her eyes. “Seth, should you really be worrying about me like this? Aren’t you hurt? Why are you out of your tub?”
“I’m fine,” he said. He lifted his shirt and showed her his skin. Though the mark from shoulder to hip was still there, the skin was completely knit back together.
“Is it still painful?” she asked, feeling her fluttering stomach and wondering how her own body was faring in the Underworld.
“Not so much. I’m lucky he didn’t break my ribs. You shouldn’t worry about me. Besides, I was only going to place your breakfast order with Nixie who is actually about to go shopping.”
“Okay,” she said, skeptically examining his straight posture. If he were truly suffering, he would have stayed in his tub. “Then I’d like a bagel with cream cheese, please.”
“Done,” he said getting up.
“What’s with all the noise out here? Who keeps calling?”
“Chas and I will explain. A lot happened since last night.”
Seth disappeared around the corner and called his brother. Two minutes later, Chas emerged from his bedroom sipping a goblet of blood like it was perfectly aged wine.
“Good morning,” he said when he saw her. “Wonderful taste you have in bodies to have selected a girl with such beautiful legs.”
“They didn’t look like this when she was thirteen,” Juliet muttered. “So, what happened when the cops dragged you off?”
“Well, they had taken down my license plate number during Seth’s car chase with Rylan and came to issue me several tickets. Actually, if my driving record was not perfect I would have lost my drivers’ license last night, thanks to Seth.” Chas paused and gave his brother an affectionate glance. “I love that I was the one who taught you how to drive.”
Seth shook his head wearily.
“So, they didn’t find out that you weren’t really the one behind the wheel?” Juliet sighed in relief.
“No. Apparently, after rampaging all over the city searching for you two, Rylan ran out of gas and passed out in the driver’s seat. The police arrested him early yesterday morning, but it took them ages to figure out what happened since Rylan has no memory of Friday night.”
“What?”
“Actually, he has no memory of the past five years. His last memory was during an accident he had at an amusement park when he was fifteen. They said he went into a coma.”
Juliet scanned the room as she thought. “So, that means that Hades has given Rylan his body back. I wonder if Rylan was dead when Hades took possession of his body. It’s possible that he wasn’t and so Hades was contractually bound to return his body to him at some point.”
Chas and Seth exchanged glances. Their knowledge was incomplete, so whatever she said was law.
The white-haired siren continued, “They brought me in to see if I had any information about Rylan. Specifically, they wanted to see my car because Rylan had obviously been ramming something with the front end of his. So, I had to take them to the garage where my car is being repaired, explain why I didn’t call the cops when he was chasing me, give a bogus explanation, and act like I was the one there the whole time.”
“What did you say?” Juliet wondered.
“I said that he was obsessed with my daughter Nixie and I was just doing what any good father would do when their child is being attacked by a maniac. That way, I have explained why there was a girl in the backseat of my car. You weren’t involved in the story I fed the cops. Since Rylan can’t verify what happened, they bought my story. Besides, Rylan’s gun was still in his car and someone had called the cops about the shot fired at your dormitory. So, he’s locked down in the hospital now being assessed by doctors trying to piece together exactly what happened to him.”
“Have you seen him?”
“They took me to the hospital and asked him if he knew me. Of course, he said he had no idea who I was.”
“Hmm, and how’s Taylor? Seth, do you know?”
“She’s been calling non-stop since sunup. Right now she’s camping on our front lawn with Halona, who is trying to calm her down.”
“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Juliet fumed. “Let her come up. I want to talk to her.”
Seth looked dubious. “She’s hysterical. Are you sure you want to see her?”
“Positive.”
As they waited for the girls to come up, Juliet asked Chas if there was anything else he needed to tell her.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “I’m just glad you’ve finally come to clear up this whole mess.”
“And I am thankful to you for taking the fall yesterday and so convincingly, too. You’re a hero.”
He smirked. “Not like Seth. He told me what he had to do to you last night. I don’t know how he stood it. I would have lost my nerve before the first cut was made.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I’m not,” he said with honest eyes. “I have carried this curse for almost seven decades and I was only allowed to be born for the sake of raising Seth in the real world. Otherwise my mother wouldn’t have had me. I lived with her and my aunt until I was sixteen. After all these years the taste of blood sickens me to the point of gagging sometimes, but I must go on because nothing else will fill my stomach and make me live on. And I must live on. How could I face you on the other side if I gave up early?”
Juliet didn’t answer. She knew how she would act if she was the one to judge his soul and he had not fulfilled the role of safeguarding Seth. Refusing to mention what they both knew to be true, she patted Chas on the back and whispered, “You have done uncommonly well. I thank you.”
He smiled at her and even though he was sixty-five, he looked incredibly young.