The Blood of the Hydra (7 page)

I pulled back on the string, ready to shoot.

“Wait!” she said, and while I didn’t shoot, I didn’t move, either. “I can tell you what you want to know. Just don’t shoot me with that. Please?”

I looked over at Kate, and she nodded for me to lower my weapon. I did.

“Want me to put the fire out?” Danielle asked.

“No,” I said. “Keep it burning. In case I need to shoot fast.”

I didn’t
really
need the fire—Blake could aim at the siren from this distance, and a shot from the arrow would hurt even if it weren’t flaming. But the siren seemed terrified of fire, and we needed to use every intimidation technique possible.

Kate stepped closer to the siren, her hand on her gun. “First question,” she said. “How did you, Orthrus, and the harpy get here? And why did you come first instead of the powerful monsters, like the Titans?”

“That’s two questions,” Tina said. “Not one.”

Blake threw a fireball straight at her hair, which was draped over the back of the chair, as long and shiny as a mermaid’s.

“Put it out!” she yelled, followed by a string of curse words that I couldn’t have imagined coming out of her delicate mouth.

Danielle just crossed her arms and smirked.

“We were able to escape because the portal between Earth and Kerberos is weakened,” the siren said, her words coming out fast as she eyed up her flaming hair. “The portal detects magic to know what to keep out. It’s getting weaker every day, but for now, only those of us who aren’t as powerful are able to sneak through. The big guys are still stuck.” She looked at Danielle expectantly. “There’s your answer, so
put out the fire now
!”

“Only because I hate the smell of burning hair.” Danielle flicked her wrist at the cup of water on the floor, and the water shot up into an arc, dumping straight onto the siren’s head. The fire sizzled out, but the bottom half of her hair was burned to a crisp.

“Wow.” Chris whistled. “You’re going to want to see a stylist about that.”

“Shut up,” she said, although the power behind the words was lost, since it was followed by a fit of coughing.

“How much longer until the portal is weak enough for the Titans to get through?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I didn’t put the portal there.”

Blake flicked his lighter, and the siren flinched back.

“But if I had to guess, it’ll be a few more months for it to get to that point,” she said, relaxing when Blake put the fire out. “Around the time of the summer solstice.”

“Good,” Kate said. “And I have one more question.”

The siren glared at her, but said nothing. At least she understood that she wasn’t in the position to barter.

“What happens when we shoot you in the heart with our weapons?”

“We disappear,” the siren said, not missing a beat. “But you know that.”

I raised my bow, which had the intended effect of making her shrink away. “Where do you
go
when you disappear?” I asked. “We thought we’d killed Orthrus, but he came back. How?”

Blake focused on the fire on my arrow, and it grew taller. But the siren still said nothing.

“Would the same thing happen if I shot you through the head?” I asked, raising my weapon to aim at the proposed target. “Would you disappear?”

“Why don’t you try it and find out?” she said sweetly.

“That’s a yes,” Kate said, and I nodded, since I’d already assumed so. “Don’t do it, or you’ll be giving her what she wants.”

Instead, I shot the arrow so it grazed her arm—slicing the skin open enough to draw blood. She threw her head back and screamed, and I strung another arrow through my bow, ready to shoot again.

“When we disappear, we go back to Kerberos.” She turned away from my bow, as if that would be enough to stop me from shooting her again. “Once there, we heal, and when our strength returns we can leave again. Try as you may, no human weapon will be strong enough to kill any of us.”

“We’re not human,” Chris said. “We’re witches. And Nicole’s a demigod.”

“You all have human blood in you.” The siren shrugged. “Same difference.”

“If none of our weapons will kill you, then what will?” Blake asked.

The siren tossed back her charred hair and laughed. “As if I’ll ever tell you.”

“I’m going to ask you the question again.” Blake flicked on his lighter, creating a fireball in his hand. “If our weapons don’t kill you, what will?” He reached forward and held the fire to the siren’s leg, which was bound to the chair. She let out a bloodcurdling scream, struggling so much that the chair tipped over, dumping her into fetal position on the floor. Blake leaned next to her and held the fire in the same spot, burning her skin until she begged him to stop. “Are you ready to answer the question now?” he asked.

“Never,” she hissed, spitting into the flames.

Danielle walked over to the siren and unsheathed her sword. “Then you have no use to us anymore,” she said, plunging the weapon straight into the siren’s heart.

The siren let out one last final gasp and disappeared.

Kate rushed to where the siren had been sprawled out only seconds ago, as if she might still be able to find her there. But she was gone. “What was that for?” she asked Danielle, pointing at the empty space where the siren had been. “She might have told us what we wanted!”

Danielle stepped back, casually holding the sword that was smothered with the siren’s blood. “No, she wouldn’t have,” she said calmly. “Not if she wanted to preserve her own life. Which I can guarantee you that she did.”

“We could have made a deal with her,” I said. “If she’d told us how to kill the monsters permanently, we could have spared her life.”

“And would we have stuck to that bargain?” Danielle smiled, as if she thought she had me cornered.

“Yes.” I stood strong. “
She
might not have expected us to—she might not have even done so if she were in our shoes—but we’re better than that. We would have honored the deal.”

“Except that you just said it yourself—she wouldn’t have expected us to stick with it,” Danielle said. “So she would have had no reason to trust us with the information we’d asked for. Trying to talk to her for any longer would have been a waste of our time.”

Kate stepped between us, putting her arms out to stop the fighting. “What’s done is done,” she said, looking back and forth between the two of us. “But at least we know that somehow, there’s a way to permanently kill these monsters. We just need to find someone else—someone on
our
side, so we know they can be trusted—who can help us figure out what that way is.”

When I woke up the next morning, one of the first things I noticed was a package resting on my windowsill. I’d been checking every day, since the last time I’d woken up to find something there, it had been a necklace with an A carved into the pendent. I kept the necklace safe in my jewelry box, since I didn’t want to risk losing it during training. While I couldn’t say for sure, I suspected it was a gift from Apollo—my father.

Ever since receiving the necklace, I’d been hoping to hear from him again. So I pushed open the window and reached for the package. It was a brown parcel, tied together with twine. I undid the knot and opened it, revealing a handwritten note inside.

To get the answers you seek, all you must do is touch the Book and ask. –A

It was written in perfect script. I read it a few more times, as if there would be a secret message to decode, but came up with nothing. The note must be literal.

I had to let the others know, but first, I had to write back to “A.” Because I needed answers, too.

So I pulled a piece of paper out of a notebook and started to write.

Hi… I’m not quite sure what to say—I guess this is the first time we’ve ever “talked.” If this is who I think it is, there’s so much I want to ask you. But it’s too much to say in a note. Will we ever be able to meet?

I didn’t sign it, because he would know who it was from. Instead, I folded it up and wrapped it inside the parcel, writing “To: A” on the outside.

I placed it on the windowsill, and then texted the others. Because if what Apollo had said in the note was correct, then this might be the clue we needed about how to access the Book.

Today, after school, we had to test it out for ourselves.

I showed the others the note when I saw them at school, and that afternoon, we sat in Darius’s living room, gathered around the Book of Shadows.

“So, you think this note is literal?” Kate asked after reading it again. She reached for the Book, but pulled back, as if afraid she might hurt it. “We can just touch the Book, and it will somehow answer us?”

“That’s what the note says.” I shrugged. “Do you want to try it?”

“Yes.” She nodded, her eyes eager. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Of course.” I motioned for her to go ahead. Kate had done so much for me since I’d arrived in Kinsley—she’d caught me up on everything I needed to know about witches—and she was so excited to see if this worked. She should be the one to try first. “Go ahead.”

She situated herself in front of the Book, laid her hands on the cover, and closed her eyes. “How do we kill the creatures escaping from Kerberos?” She spoke slowly, as if that would help the Book understand her. Then she opened her eyes and lifted her hands, looking down at the Book in question. “Do I just… open it?” she asked.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” I said. “But yes, that seems like it would make sense.”

“Right.” She hovered over the Book and took a deep breath, wringing her fingers together. “Here goes nothing.” She opened the Book and flipped through the pages, her expression blank as she looked through them.

“Well?” Danielle asked, tapping her fingers on her knee.

“There’s still nothing there.” Kate sat back on her heels and sighed. “It’s empty.”

“So much for that,” Chris said. “Looks like we’re back to where we were last night.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Blake rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the Book. “Nicole was the only one who could lift the Book from the stand. Maybe
she
should ask it what’s inside.”

“It’s worth a try.” I kneeled in front of the coffee table, closed the Book, and placed my hands on the cover. “How do we kill the creatures from Kerberos?” I asked, repeating Kate’s words exactly.

Heat surged up my arm, feeling like it was coming straight from the Book, and I took a sharp breath inward.

“What?” Kate asked. “Did something happen?”

“I think so…” I pulled my hands off the Book, opened it, and gasped at what I saw. Now, instead of being blank, the first page had
Table of Contents
written in old text. One row down, it said
Crafting Your Weapons, page 4.

The others gathered around me—Darius, too—their mouths open as they saw the script on the page. We were all silent as I turned to page four. Now, instead of being blank, it was full of text.

“I need my reading glasses to see that,” Darius said, moving back to his armchair. “So would one of you like to read out loud?”

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered, barely taking a breath before starting to read. “It says that by now, the Fire Elemental should have begun welding the weapons found in the book he received in his clue.” We all nodded, because Blake had done a fantastic job creating the weapons described in the book. He was a complete natural. My bow, Danielle’s katana, and Chris’s knives had all been crafted by Blake. “Part of the curse put on the creatures in Kerberos, to keep them there for all eternity, is that if they ever find themselves back on Earth, they will be returned to Kerberos upon their death.”

“It makes sense,” Kate said. “Kerberos was supposed to be the most secure place to imprison them—even more secure than Tartarus. The Olympians never expected anyone to be able to escape, but of course they needed a back up plan in case it happened.”

“But there’s something we can do to change it, right?” Chris asked.

“I’m getting to that,” I said, continuing to read. “However, if the correct ingredients are gathered and mixed by the Elementals, the mixture can be coated onto their weapons. When used to fatally wound, these weapons will send the creature to limbo for one year. This will prevent them from being immediately returned to Kerberos.”

“Just as I suspected,” Darius mused. “It is impossible to permanently destroy the soul of any immortal creature. However, sending them to limbo will buy us time to figure out how to seal the portal. What are the ingredients you’ll need?”

“They’re all listed here,” I said, finding them on the center of the page. “There are three of them. The seed of the lotus fruit, the milk from the sacred immortal cattle of Helios, and the blood of the slain hydra.”

“Sounds like we won’t be able to walk into the grocery store and pick that up,” Chris said. “Where are we supposed to find that stuff?”

I scanned the rest of the information in the Book. “It doesn’t say,” I said. “There’s a recipe under the ingredients, but no instructions about where we can find them. If they even exist.” I sighed and placed the Book back down, feeling defeated already.