Solstice (26 page)

I’m alone then, in the middle of a growing crowd of empty ghosts pressing in from all sides. I steady my nerves which threaten to send me running for the clay river. But thoughts of the monsters halt me. I can do this. I can wait for Shayne who should be back any moment. I can keep my thoughts from Chloe who is safe back above ground and from Reese who is looking for a tunnel into my mind.

Reese’s smell surrounds me and pushes its way into my nose, but it’s only teasing me. I shift my feet as if firm footing will steel my resolve. The scent plays with me, coming from all angles, and I squeeze my eyes and hold my breath to keep it out.

“Piper.”

The voice is a whisper. But there is no doubt whose voice it is.

“I want you.”

Reese sounds like a melody, but I stay in place, not breathing. Not opening my eyes to see if he is really there.

“Don’t fight me.”

I want to grow my feet into the ground. I want to close my nostrils and live without air. But instead I inhale, trying to get as much of it as I can.

“I can give you everything.”

Could Reese give me everything? Does he want me? I don’t want to fight him. I want to stop fighting. But I exhale and then stop my breath, seeing how long I can last. Will I die here in the Underworld if I don’t breathe? Is it possible to die in the place of the dead?

I’m pretty sure I’m about to find out. I keep my mouth closed and plug my nose. And just when my lungs vow to retaliate if I don’t suck in air, Reese’s voice fades along with his scent; it disappears into the air above me. And only then do I inhale once again.

All at once, Shayne is at my side. He pulls off the Helm of Darkness and appears next to me.

“Reese was here.” I’m gasping at this point from holding my breath, but Reese’s smell is a drug.

“It’s not possible.” His face twists in frustration. “The Underworld may be weakening, but nobody should be able to penetrate it. Not even Ares.” He attaches the Helm of Darkness back to his belt and takes my hand. “He’s gone now.”

“But he was here.”

“Only a shadow of him,” Shayne says. “He wasn’t here physically.”

I glance around. “Will he be back?”

Shayne’s eyes settle on the mass of dead faces. “Not if I can help it.” He motions out to the black clouds. “I need to see how bad things actually are.”

I push the thought of Chloe out of my mind, wanting to erase any connection between her and this godforsaken place as fast as possible. It was not her, only Reese…Ares…made to look like her. Chloe is alive, though living on a stolen life thanks to me.

We’re on a paved walkway, and ahead are buildings with walls made of gears as big as houses. One connects to another and then to another, and they turn like a perfectly synchronized clock. It’s like a giant metal organism. The scent of oil hangs thick in the air, and the gears crunch over and over with clicks and whirls. “What goes on here?” I whisper, but even my whispers draw stares from the dead faces around us.

Shayne tightens his arm around me. “Everything happens here. Asphodel keeps most of Hell running.”

“Running? Like what?”

We walk to the largest building in the front. Shayne has to wait until the gears click past, and only then is there an opening we can fit through. No sooner are we inside than the gear moves behind us again and seals out the light. Inside, we’re greeted by dead faces which are attached to people who are buffing and polishing metal everywhere. Control panels cover the walls, but they have so many buttons and lights, I can’t even distinguish one from the next. Red blurs into blue and green. People sit in front of the controls, and their hands move in the same motions over and over.

“The Underworld is just that. A world,” Shayne says. “There’s plenty to do. Just because almost everyone here is dead doesn’t mean there’s no effort involved in running it.”

“But look at these people.” I motion around at the scene in front of me. The residents of Asphodel stare back at me with their stygian faces filled with only emptiness. It’s like they aren’t even aware of the tasks they’re doing, and yet they have to do them forever. “This is Hell.”

Shayne shrugs. “They don’t know they’re unhappy. They don’t know anything. Not even who they used to be.”

I can’t believe his lack of emotion. “How can you stand this? How can you stand to even come here?” Is Randy just another one of these people, oiling some giant machine?

Shayne considers this. “I have to come here. Whether I like it or not. It’s my job, and there’s no one else to do it.”

I wave my hand across the scene. “But why this? Surely there’s some better solution.”

Shayne lets out a laugh which doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s face it, Piper. Not everyone deserves to be in the Elysian Fields. Being sort of nice won’t get you there.”

The dead faces surround me. These faces used to be people. People with lives and families and dreams. People like Randy Conner. “Well, that stinks,” I say.

“Maybe. But being sort of bad won’t get you sent to Tartarus, either, so it’s kind of like a compromise.”

It makes sense, though I don’t want to agree with him out loud. “How many souls come here?” The dead are packed in like cockroaches; they hardly can move.

“Lots of people have died over the years, Piper. But Hell grows to fit them all.” Shayne stands a little straighter when he says this, and I realize he must be proud of his world.

“Isn’t that convenient? And when you say lots, you mean like…?”

“…billions. And most are here.”

We leave one factory and then another. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all Asphodel has to offer. The entire place seems to be a city paved over with machines. Shayne tries to tell me how each machine has a purpose, but it’s all just so industrial. There’s no nature and no weather. Asphodel is like a giant void filled with metal. Shayne leads us further into the city, away from the sanctuary of the boat—a sanctuary surrounded by a clay river infested with voracious monsters.

“What are we looking for?” I ask. I don’t mention Randy because I know he’s not the reason Shayne brought us here. As we walk through the city of factories, they seem to fly by around us. Like they’re all in fast forward and we’re not. They’re a blur in my peripheral vision.

We step to the side as some kind of robotic car comes driving by. It’s carrying five dead people who don’t even seem to notice us.

“Checking in with the management.” Shayne stops and turns his head so he’s looking at me. “Do you mind coming along?” The way he angles his head lets me know he’s curious what my response will be. Like he’s testing me.

Something about his question makes me laugh.

“What?” When he asks, the red flecks in his pupils flash.

“I’d say that I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, but that doesn’t seem like enough.”

His smile lights up the gray world of Asphodel around us. “No, it’s doesn’t, but it still sounds nice to me.”

“Well, as tempting as it may be, I’m not going to let you leave me here alone.”

Shayne raises an eyebrow. “Scared?”

I glance back at the lifeless city. “I’m not quite sure that’s the right word.” The truth is I want to see what else is out there. I want to see more of the Underworld. And I still want to find Randy—the real Randy—even if Shayne tells me there’s no point.

“Good,” he says.

And I know I’ve passed his test.

We start walking again in our fast forward way, and before long, we pass through a flat, metal plane populated with the dead, empty-eyed souls. As soon as I see them, every bit of laughter and happiness is sucked right out of me.

“You get used to it.”

I guess it shows on my face. But I shake my head. “I don’t want to get used to it.”

I don’t expect him to respond, but he does. “It’s reality, though, Piper. Just like above. Look at Austin. Some parts are nice, and you’d feel safe going out at night alone to walk your dog. But try to do that in the wrong area, and it could be the last thing you ever do.”

“Not if Cerberus were my dog.”

Shayne smiles and pulls me closer with his arms. “I could loan him to you.”

The image of me walking Cerberus around on the Drag fills my mind. Of course, there, he’d probably fit right in. “My mom doesn’t give me much opportunity to hit the seedier areas of town.”

Shayne leans over and kisses my cheek, making me want to press into him. “So maybe next time Reese comes around, you could employ Cerberus.”

The image of Cerberus tearing Reese apart limb by limb is a strange one. Would tearing the god of war apart limb by limb be able to stop him? I almost ask Shayne, but then decide killing gods is a conversation topic I don’t want to bring up given our bleak surroundings.

“Rhadam tells me there’s been trouble in Asphodel,” Shayne says.

“What kind of trouble?” I think of the pomegranate tree dying in the Elysian Fields. That had been trouble for Shayne, also. Things shouldn’t die in paradise. And I think about what else Rhadam said. About bad things brewing in other parts of Hell: secrets being kept and plans being made.

“Things not working right. Souls misplaced. Machines breaking. Even attempts to cross the river.” Shayne points to a house far off ahead of us. It’s up on a hill away from the city, and unlike the rest of the bleak Asphodel, the air seems fresh around it, and rays of light actually touch it. “And we’re going there to find out why.”

As to why Shayne decides to take me on this task, I have no idea. He can’t possibly think this is some kind of romantic date, and the closer we get to the house on the hill, the less I want to go. Even though it’s clear and crisp outside, the house itself seethes evil. But there’s no chance I’ll venture back through Asphodel without him. And anyway, if he is testing me, I don’t want to back down now. I want to prove to Shayne I’m tough like he is.

“Who lives here?” We’re at the top of the hill now. Almost at the front door. It reminds me of a retro Hollywood home. Lots of glass windows and steel beams, but the front door is ten feet tall and made of thick black wood—like the door of a fortress.

“Minos.”

I guess my blank expression tells Shayne I need more explanation.

“An old Cretan king. He’s the overlord here in Asphodel.”

“A king from Crete runs Asphodel?”

“An ancient king runs each of the territories. Minos here. Rhadamanthus in the Elysian Fields. And Aeacus in Tartarus.”

“Rhadam is a king?” I guess I never thought to ask this when I met him.

Shayne shakes his head. “Was a king. Here in Hell he’s only an overlord. They all are. I’m the only king in the Underworld.” He scowls. “Which more and more seems to be a point of confusion among the lords.”

I remember Rhadam’s deference to Shayne, so solid a part of their relationship it could never be in question. “Not Rhadam?”

“No, not Rhadam.” Shayne brushes his sleeves, and dirt vanishes off them. “He’s true to me through and through. And as it happens, the only one I can trust.”

We’re at the imposing door now, but Shayne doesn’t open it. Can he sense the evil which touches each and every one of my nerves? He lets go of my hand, and I look at him, ready to open my mouth and ask another question. But I stop. In a single moment, he’s ceased to be Shayne, the guy I’m sure I’m in love with, and has become Hades, supreme King of the Underworld. A force to be reckoned with.

He lifts his hand and knocks on the thick door—a knock so hard I hear the echoes through the windows inside the house. Nobody answers, but Shayne doesn’t knock again. Instead, he waits, and we stand there in silence until, after what feels like eternity, a lock clicks, and the door creeps open. Dead eyes greet us inside.

“I’m here to see Minos.” Shayne doesn’t ask; he states it.

The man who’s opened the door stares at Shayne. He’s got sandy blond hair, and from his engorged biceps, it’s obvious this guy spent way too much time in the gym back when he was alive. But now, here in Hell, does it really matter how much time someone spent in the gym? I wonder if he spent more time with his loved ones and less time working out if he’d have ended up in the Elysian Fields instead of Asphodel—Land of the Walking Dead.

“King Minos is busy.”

It’s the first time someone in Asphodel has spoken. Until this point, I’m not even sure they can speak.

Shayne’s face hardens, and I almost hear electricity sizzle off him next to me. “Tell Minos that King Hades demands to speak with him.” He omits the word
king
in front of Minos.

The man doesn’t nod or agree or shake his head. It’s only when he walks backward, away from us, and toward a long hallway that I realize he’s simply obeying Shayne’s command. The command of the King of the Underworld must supersede commands from one of Shayne’s minions.

Shayne and I stand there, still on the doorstep, watching him leave.

I lean close to him and put my lips to his ear. “Why don’t you go in and find him?”

He whispers back, not turning his head away from the room ahead. “Because even here in Hell, we have courtesies.”

“It doesn’t seem like Minos is being very courteous to you.”

Shayne gives his head an almost imperceptible shake. “No, it doesn’t.”

Another ten minutes later, and the blond shell of a man returns. “Follow me.”