Drop Dead Demons (46 page)

I had enough time to note that Aphrodite smelled like all my favorite desserts rolled into one before I turned, grabbed her shoulders and slammed her with a headbutt.

She yelped and staggered back. I reached for Chloe. Artemis shot an arrow directly at Aphrodite’s brain. It was inches from burying between the Goddess of Love’s eyes when Aphrodite caught it one-handed and shoved it under my jaw, the point digging into soft skin.

I froze.

“Cease!” Aphrodite clamped a hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Or the child will lose her heart.” Her fingernails elongated into sharp talons that curled down and pressed into the fabric over Chloe’s chest. Small pricks of blood blossomed on the crisp, white blouse.

“Let her go,” I said, the movement drawing a trickle of blood down my neck as the arrow pressed deeper. “Take me.”

I stifled the desire to use my power, too afraid I’d catch Chloe in the crossfire.

“In time, my pet. Have no doubt.” Aphrodite curved a calculating smile and rocketed the arrow at Artemis who disappeared in a puff of smoke, then the Goddess of Love shoved me aside and dragged Chloe toward the portal.

I glared at Aphrodite’s back, my fingers twitching with power. I took several steps toward her. If I could just get a clear shot.

Aphrodite turned, jerking Chloe with a violent twist, making the kid whimper and causing her eyes to become huge and shining.

The goddess sneered with malice. “I feel the passion of your hatred, your desire to avenge, but know this. I will slay her if you try to thwart me. Stand down.”

My nostrils flared. “Fine.” I put up my hands and backed away.

“Watch her,” Aphrodite told Eros, then turned to stand in front of the portal, reveling at her triumph. She lifted the necklace high and pointed it toward the portal, gazing delightedly at the enlarging sections of shimmering blur where the rock was thinning and letting through a faint glow of dark red.

A direct line to the Waiting World and her hoard of demon recruits.

My brain was wimping out. On the run, scrambling for a quiet place to shut down until all this was over, but I muscled a firm grip on its coattails and forced it to think. This could still work. The gods were all here, my power was geared up, ready to pounce, so once the portal opened I’d use it to shove them through.

Easy, just like Jenny said. Only one hitch. Couldn’t let Chloe get caught in the crossfire.

“Aphrodite, you’ve got what you wanted.” I kept backing off while looking for a way to double-back on the gods without being noticed, because Jenny was right. I was better at close range. “Let the girl go and take me. I’m much more valuable.”

Aphrodite spat, “I will have you soon enough, pet. Dare you not rush my triumph.” She lifted the necklace higher and spoke in a grand voice. “My army will soon arrive. My hour of glory is…is…” She paused.

Her arm holding the necklace lowered slowly. The portal, which moments ago was opening, now started solidifying again, almost back to hard rock.

“What is happening?” she practically screeched. “
Eros?
Why does it close? It must open. It must
stay
open so your pathetic lover can bring me my army!”

Eros snatched the necklace from his mother, studied it closely, then swallowed and closed his eyes for a long moment.

He spoke softly. “This isn’t the Portal Stone.” Then he looked at me with accusation and misery. “How could you?”

“How could I what?” I felt panic rising. This didn’t make sense. “I used the other one to find it. Like you said. It has to be the stone!”

Aphrodite looked to Eros. “Are you certain it is not the stone we need?” She saw the confirmation on Eros’s face, saw the portal almost completely closed. She turned to me, teeth bared. “The child will pay for your mistakes.” She lifted Chloe who squirmed and wailed as Aphrodite’s talons penetrated fabric and flesh.

More blood on white.

“I didn’t know!” I ran forward. “I can find the right stone! Eros, you said we had two days so give me more time!” And just one clear shot at this obnoxious
witch!

A gun fired. The blast echoed as the bullet chipped the stone wall behind Aphrodite’s head.

Sighting down his weapon, Jenny yelled, “Don’t!”   

With a murderous look, Aphrodite slashed her arm through the air. Jenny’s gun flung from his hand. He was already pulling another when a slash of the goddess’s arm catapulted him backwards. He crashed into Tristan who spun sideways, the tassels on his hat twirling erratically. The computer tablet ripped from Tristan’s hands and slammed against a boulder, shattered and broken.

Aphrodite cackled with triumph, then holding Chloe in front of her, she turned toward the rest of the Hex Boys. Her face lit up with maniacal glee. They scattered, taking cover behind rocks. Except for Ayden who dove into the bubbling pool. 

As blood spread over her shirt, Chloe screamed in pain, then suddenly bit down on Aphrodite’s hand. The goddess shrieked, her hold loosened, and I barreled into her, knocking them both to the ground. I
thudded
against the portal. It shuddered and squealed, and the stone wall started to thin and dissipate again. Scorching waves of heat rolled through.

“It’s opening!” Aphrodite smiled with insanity, then narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you doing? Do you have the true stone?”

“Run!” I told Chloe.

The gutsy little girl tried, but Aphrodite grabbed her ankle. I jumped on top of the goddess and bashed her beautiful face with my fists. I was feeling pretty tough, until she thrust one hand to my chest, and I vaulted straight up, my back crashing into the ceiling, body staying pinned by an invisible force.

I heard a rumble and a cranking of gears. From the ceiling around me, rock crumbled down. I felt pressure on my lower back. The metal net had started to feed out from the stone and began lowering, pushing me down along with it.

With a deafening
boom
the water in the pool shot straight up in a jet of steam, shattering stalactites like toothpicks. Then Fido burst from the pool with Ayden clinging to her like a trainer in some freakazoid Supernatural Sea World extravaganza. Her ridiculously many feet skidded to a stop as a dozen of Artemis’s rabid hounds grew from the ground like weeds. With a squeal of fury, my Blood Contract diva faced down the monstrous pack. They crouched, snarling, fangs bared and drooling. Then they attacked.

Fido didn’t flinch. She scooped up two leaping hounds in her mouth, crunching them into oblivion. During a graceful backflip off her furry body, Ayden incinerated three more.

As the other boys joined in to battle the remaining hounds, Matthias shot a whip around Chloe’s waist and tried to pull her from Aphrodite’s grip. But the goddess spun the girl so the whip wrapped around her body, higher and higher until it encircled the little girl’s throat and tightened like a noose. Chloe groped futilely at her neck, strangled noises blubbering through her lips.  

Matthias uncurled the whip and shot two more at Aphrodite. She gestured her arm and several of the fallen stalactites lifted from the ground and rocketed like spears toward the Aussie. He dived for cover, but one clipped his shoulder. He went down behind rock and his shadow whips disappeared.

Between Aphrodite’s force still holding me up, and the net pushing me down, I felt like I’d snap in two. Pain and fear overwhelmed me. I couldn’t think.

Chloe screamed. More blood oozed on her shirt.  

I dug through the panic and found a surge of power. Sparks burst from my fingers. Light beamed and shot down toward the psycho-pseudo goddess. Her eyes grew wide and she disappeared, teleporting in a puff of smoke. Released from her power, I
thudded
to the ground. 

Energy raced down my arms. I rolled away, worried Chloe was still near and I’d zap her and anyone else into oblivion, but when I looked around, Chloe was nowhere in sight.

“Eros!” I pushed to my feet, slipping and splashing in shallow puddles of warm water, eyes raking over the cave. “Where’s Chloe?”

But he didn’t answer, too busy running along the shimmering portal, screaming, “Psyche!”

I coughed on thick, humid air coming through the portal. It smelled like burnt compost and tasted worse. I blinked, moved to wipe the grime from my sweaty face and saw my fingertips looked like Fourth of July sparklers. The light buzzing from the tips grew longer and spidered out in jagged lines of electricity, sizzling across the floor of the cave, pulsing with life.

The lines of power moved along the ground as if searching, and tore through one of Artemis’s hounds like paper. Bloody, gut-shredded paper.

The force took hold, overpowered me, dragging my hands forward, raising them up. I couldn’t pull away. The ends of the spidered light moved closer to the portal, quivering with bursts of light until…

With a gathering roar, my energy hit the wall, and the portal ripped open.

Everything shook. Dirt rained down from the ceiling. Eros was thrown to the ground as streams of orange-red light burst through from the other side of the portal, connected with the light from my tingling fingers, and caused more pulsing webs of electricity to leap from my hands in bright bursts of unnatural colors.

The jagged lines of power seemed alive. Ravenous, on the hunt. Pins and needles overwhelmed my body. I jerked my hands, tried to pull them away, but they were stuck. The lightening streaks tethered them irrevocably to the portal and the horror of the world beyond.

The Waiting World.

And in this version? The land of fire and brimstone. Not that I ever figured out what brimstone was.

Rolling over the fiery landscape, lava flows curved in rushing torrents, the remnants of dead bodies tumbling within their thick, steaming current. In the distance, volcanoes erupted. Fire spontaneously burst from the burning ground. Hot wind blew in a tempest, searing my face.

This was just not my night.

Matthias ran at me. “We need to get out of here!” He pointed to the metal net behind us which was now more than halfway down. “Tristan can’t stop it. We need to get on the other side before it reaches the ground. Shut down your power!”

“I can’t!” I yanked my hands back, but the tethers of lightning just got longer, like I was stuck in gum.

“I can.” Jenny’s scarred hands clamped onto my shoulders, his fingers on the verge of breaking my collar bone. But instead of dissipating, my energy surged with intensity.

Matthias yelled, “Jenny, turn off her bloody powers!”

“I’m trying! But she’s—” Jenny’s voice broke from the strain.

“She’s
what?
” Ayden was frantic.

Jenny’s hands remained gripped tight, sweat dripping off his chin. “She’s pulling power from
me!
” 

I fought the pull toward the portal. “I’m not trying to!”

Jenny struggled, his body slumped, teeth gritted, as step by grunting step, he lugged me backwards trying to get me behind the demon-catcher net before it lowered completely. But it was slow going. The lines of crackling energy kept lengthening, pulling against us, refusing to release my hold on the portal.

Ayden reached for me. “I’ll help!”

I yelled, “No!” just as Jayden dragged his twin back to  the security of Blake’s arms.

“Find Chloe!” Jenny’s voice quaked with effort and desperation.

Something splattered at my feet.

A skull.

Decomposing. An eyeball dangled out like infected snot.

Tristan screamed. I wanted to but couldn’t, my lungs shutting down from the Herculean effort to get myself out of this horrific mess.

Another skull splattered.

A blurred figure stood just inside the portal. On the
other
side. Someone was in the Waiting World. Throwing body parts out.

“Impossible!” Eros scrambled to his feet, shocked, pawing at the portal. “Aurora, keep it open! Please, just long enough to get Psyche out! She’s right here!”

“Eros!” Aphrodite appeared in front of the portal, facing it, her back to us. “Where is my army? Your simpering concubine was supposed to bring them. We had a deal!”

Another skull flew through the portal and
thunked
Aphrodite in the head.

“How dare she!” the goddess seethed, then snarled her venom at Eros. “Your betrayal will cost you everything!”

Eros kept clawing at the portal. “Get her out and I’ll do whatever you ask!”

“Too late!” Aphrodite’s cold voice echoed. “For all of you!”

In a violent rage, she turned to us, and dread sliced through my gut.

She had Chloe.

Aphrodite gripped the sobbing girl by the hair, using her as a shield. They were so close to the portal. Too close. Both her and Chloe’s hair lifted up and backwards, and started to get sucked in. 

Jenny finally heaved me behind the metal net’s path. He looked up and saw his daughter. With a guttural wrench of pain, he ripped his hands off me and lurched toward the portal, but his legs gave out. He collapsed and choked a pathetic, “Chloe!” before his eyes fluttered closed, and he went still.

Aphrodite’s beautiful, crazy eyes landed on me.

“Close the portal and come with me!” She had to shout to be heard over the roar of my energy and the rumbling grind of the gate on its steady descent. “Or I will destroy everyone you hold dear. Close it now!”

“Can’t do that until you let Chloe go.” I didn’t know how to do that under
any
circumstances, but Aphrodite didn’t need to know that. So I bluffed. Kind of. What other option did I have but to give her what she wanted. A kid’s life was on the line. “Release her and I’ll come with you and do whatever you want. With my help you can rule the world.” Until I find a way to destroy you.

“Come forth then,” Aphrodite said with a satisfied glint in her beautiful eyes. “We shall seal the accord.”

The hand in Chloe’s hair dropped to the girl’s shoulder. The other reached toward me in an all too elegant gesture for a bargain so vile. I gulped and took one step forward. Someone yelled, “No!”

A hand came out of the portal. On a surprising note — because everything else so far had been completely mundane — it wasn’t decomposing. It grabbed a fistful of Aphrodite’s hair and yanked.

Aphrodite fell backwards, her body sucked through the portal and into the hellacious Waiting World. Which would have been cause for celebration except…

She took Jenny’s daughter with her.

The net was almost completely down, ready to shut us off from the portal. And Chloe on the other side.

My body reacted before my mind made the decision.

I quit fighting the energy and instead, fed more of it into my hands, letting the jagged light streams keep the portal open, increasing the connection. Then I ran forward and did my best homerun slide, down on my side and under the net. I had barely enough room to get through, the metal edges so close they tore through my shirt just before they
thudded
their way into the stone floor and buried themselves deep.

I was cut off.

Didn’t have time to worry about that because I was back on my feet, using the pull of the crackling lightning tethers still shooting from my hands to help me gain speed as I raced directly at the portal.

And jumped through.