The Immortal Game (book 1) (27 page)

“Do you know who I am?” Ares’s eyes narrowed.

Ruby glanced at him in surprise.

“I don’t care who you are,” John Wright said.

“I am Ares,” Ares said it as if the man were already impressed.

Ruby saw a smile form on the ragged man’s lips. “Ares? Hera’s favored son? The god of war? That Ares?”

“That Ares,” Ares hissed.

The shade burst into peals of raspy laughter.

Ares’s face went slack.

“Ares? Right. And she … she’s Aphrodite.” He was holding his stomach as he looked at Ruby and laughed.

Ruby tried not to be offended. She never expected to pass for Aphrodite anyway.

Ares lifted the man again. “I am Ares!” he bellowed into his face.

The man became silent. His face turned ashen. Ruby didn’t know whether he believed Ares or simply realized he was outmuscled either way. His response was a quick and supplicating, “Ares. Yes.”

“You will lead us to the ferryman,” Ares said.

John stumbled up the path when Ares released him, toward the place he had said he would not go back to again.

They soon ran across more shades on the path. Many were as desperate-looking as John. They sat on the edge of the trail, begging.

“What do they want? Why are they here?” Ruby asked Ares in a low voice.

“An obol.” He matched her low tone. “Payment for the ferryman. These people were either too poor or too friendless to have been buried with the fare.”

“But people aren’t buried with an obol anymore. How can they pay?” She pictured her father’s funeral. It had been a closed casket. There wasn’t enough of him left after the bomb to try to piece him back together. Would she see him here, or in Hades? Would he be whole again?

“Charon will take anything of value,” Ares said. “Anything he finds appealing.”

John led them on, muttering his displeasure and ignoring the line of beggars that became thicker along the path, even as the path became wider as they went.

The trio pushed their way through, until, all of a sudden, the beggars turned toward them and rushed in the opposite direction in one great wave.

Ruby, Ares, and John were now alone in an open area large enough for five or six men to stand abreast.

John stopped. His back stiffened.

“What is it, man?” Ares’s voice rose in anger.

“It’s them,” John whispered. “The Brigand.” He tried to back up on the trail, but he ran into Ares, who stood like a brick wall in the path. The shade was trapped between the threat of thieves in front and the god of war behind.

Ares said nothing, but looked ahead. Resolve settled into his features.

Ruby heard them before she could see them; a rowdy crowd after the bars have closed, when no one’s ready to go home and the cops are scarce. She stood close to Ares.

She remembered her bow and had enough time to free it from the tangle of shirt on her back. The metal thrummed in her hand, more intense than when she had touched the bow before. She nocked a silver arrow on the string and tried to squelch her feelings of inadequacy.

Artemis’s words came back to her,
release your energy into the bow … the arrows will shoot true
. She breathed out and relaxed her tense shoulders. She imaged her hand melding with the metal of the bow and her energy flowing into it. The thrumming melted into a pleasant warmth.

Ares leaned toward her. “Hold the bow low. Don’t let them see it at first. We’re not enemies yet.” His bright blue eyes caught hers. “Trust your instincts.”

She nodded and held the bow and arrow in separate hands at her sides, loose, but ready.

The leader of the group was obvious by the way he came into the light of the torch first, loud and giving orders. He stopped short when he saw Ares and Ruby standing in his way.

“What do we have here? Newcomers? And a couple at that.” His tone was one of mocking sweetness. “What was it? Car crash? Tragic accident? You’re both
so
young.” He was tall—as tall as Ares—and burly.

Ruby could see why he was so confident. He led a small but well-equipped group of four men and three women. Most were larger than any of the other shades she had seen so far. They wore warm clothes and jewelry, as well as an assortment of other Earthly items. One had on a Yankees cap. Another wore green and white wing-tip shoes. The tallest woman was draped in a soldier’s dress jacket with a military insignia Ruby didn’t recognize. The leader had a gold ring on every finger.

“Let us pass,” Ares said in a clear deep voice.

The leader laughed. So did everyone else in his group. Even John, who had stepped to the side, giggled. This made Ruby more nervous than anything else. She tightened her grip on the silver bow.

“You may pass.” The leader smiled. “There’s just the matter of a small fee. Say, that bow your girlfriend’s carrying.”

Ruby pulled the bow and arrow behind her.

“Now, now,” the Brigand leader said, “hand it here and you’ll be on your way. No fuss, no muss.”

“I don’t think so.” Ares looked him straight in the eye. “Move aside and we won’t hurt you.”

Again the group laughed. They pulled weapons out from beneath their clothes. One man held a long, curved sword. Another had a hatchet. The leader drew out a sword with a gold hilt encrusted with jewels. The grandeur of it seemed ridiculous in the dimness and squalor of the Underworld.

Ruby sucked in a breath as she saw the taller of the women pull out a pistol. She found her voice with that breath.

“Your weapons won’t do you much good. We’re already dead, right?” Ruby asked, wondering if they could tell she was mortal.

“Newbies, through and through,” the leader said. The rest of his gang chuckled. “You are most rightly dead if you’re here. But the knife still cuts. The bullet still shreds. And believe me, the flesh still feels.” He turned his head. Ruby flinched at the sight of an angry red scar that ran from above his ear to below his jaw. “You won’t die. But, oh, you’ll suffer. And in the end we’ll have that bow.”

“This is your last chance to lower your weapons and move aside,” Ares said.

The Brigand leader smiled a large grin of rotted teeth. He nodded and the band came at them; eight on two.

Ares reach behind him, drew out his sword, and stepped forward to meet them.

The bow shook in Ruby’s hand as she nocked the silver arrow, looked in the general direction of the woman with the gun, and let fly. The arrow wobbled, then straightened. Ruby stood slack-jawed as it found its mark and stuck. A red flower bloomed on the woman’s chest as the force knocked her flat.

Ares’s sword flashed repeatedly in the torchlight. He turned this way and that, deflecting blows. The attackers stumbled over each other’s bodies as they fell under Ares’s power.

The man in the Yankees cap saw an opening. He rushed at Ruby with a rusty dagger in one hand and a shiny hunting knife in the other.

She raised the bow, this time giving all of her energy over to it. The arrow zinged and hit the man square in the throat. He fell backward as though someone had kicked his legs out from under him.

Her heart pumped fast and hard with adrenaline. Cold rushed through her center. Heat shivered across her skin. The bow felt like an extension of her own arm, like it was a part of her. She held it up, looking for another villainous character to dispatch. Instead she found Ares, sword in hand, with six bloody and broken victims at his feet. His blue eyes nearly pulsed in the dim light.

Ruby felt her smile fade. She had shot two people. They were already dead, but she had
shot
them. She looked at Ares again, at the bodies around him. Now she knew why he only brought one sword into the Underworld. One was all he needed. His victims were not just unconscious, not just cut, they were in pieces.

Her heart, already pumping like crazy, sped even faster at the thought that Ares—
her
Ares—was capable of such destruction.

She watched him scan the bodies for movement. Satisfied they weren’t going to paste themselves back together anytime soon, he looked around for John, who had hidden when the fighting started. The shade was with a group of others, cowering under a rocky overhang. Ares pointed to the bodies. “Take what you want.”

All at once the beggars were on them, going through packs and pockets, and picking up scattered weapons. Ares stopped them with his commanding voice, and pointed to John. “He picks first. Then he comes with us.”

John beamed, “Yes, sir, Ares.” He picked up the hunting knife the Yankees fan had dropped and crammed the cap on his own head. He took a package of fruits and breads from one of the women, and a gold ring from the leader’s motionless hand. “Like some? Ares? Aphrodite?” He held out an apple to each of them.

Ruby’s stomach was already churning from fighting, from seeing what Ares could do, from seeing what she could do. She reached for the fruit with a numb hand, her mind still reeling. “Thanks …”

Ares grabbed her arm. “No.” He gave her a stern look.

Like jumping into a cold river, she came to her senses. The Brigand could have killed her or hurt Ares, but the fruit could condemn her to an undead eternity in the Underworld.

John put the apple in his ragged coat pocket and bit into a pear he held in his other hand. Juice dripped down his chin. Ruby looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on a private, almost intimate, moment.

Ares walked to Ruby’s two victims, pulled the silver arrows from their bodies, and wiped the blood on their clothes. The woman moaned. Ruby recoiled.

He brought the arrows to her. The falcon feathers were straight and unruffled. She watched, still dazed, as he tucked the arrows back into her quiver.

John slipped a mango in with the apple. “My favorite,” he said with a grin. “For later.”

“Ready?” Ares asked Ruby.

“Yes, sir, Ares,” John responded just short of a salute. He bowed his head and looked at Ruby. “Aphrodite.”

Ruby took Ares’s lead and nodded at the man. She glanced at Ares.

He winked at her.

John continued, eager now, on the path. The number of shades languishing there multiplied. People were dressed in styles from throughout time. Women wore long dresses with their hems sweeping the dirty ground. There were men in knee length pants and long socks, and children in grey-brown gowns. A few shades were naked and Ruby realized they must have been so poor their families didn’t have the money to dress their dearly departed.

It was a sad, dismal place, and they hadn’t even crossed the Styx yet. The lost souls held out their hands, hoping someone would take pity on them and spare them a trinket valuable enough to buy their passage across the river. Ruby wished she had something to give them.

Soon the crowd thickened even more. People here were better dressed. They weren’t begging. They were waiting. The rock walls were full of markings:
Cecil, 1456
;
Henry, 1873
;
Suzan, 1989
. There were countless languages and symbols, many she didn’t recognize.

John led them through the crowd, pushing and demanding his way through. “Make way for the gods.” The shades around them didn’t seem to hear, or maybe they didn’t care.

The crowd stopped of its own accord about fifty feet from the water’s edge, as if there were a glass wall holding them back. Ruby, Ares, and John pushed through and stepped into the empty space between the crowd and a feeble wooden dock. At the end of the dock was a single lantern casting a small circle of yellow light into the yawning cavern.

The crowd, which had been loud and jeering with people vying to be next on the ferry, was abruptly quiet when they saw the three of them. John scurried back into the crowd, leaving Ruby and Ares alone in the open.

Ruby scanned the area, searching for what danger might lie here. Ares only looked ahead, across the river. The far side was shrouded in mist and darkness. There was little movement on the river’s surface. Fat, lazy ripples reflected the lamplight in slow motion. Not like water. Like something thicker. Like liquid night.

They had not stood there long when a wooden skiff, traveling in its own circle of lamplight, came into view. A tall hooded figure stood at the helm. His body bent and then straightened as he used a gnarled wooden pole to push off the bottom of the river.

Charon.

What little heat Ruby still had drained out of her. She would have rather faced the Brigand again, stayed with the destitute dead forever, or walked all the way back to the barren wastelands of Death Valley, than get in that boat and be in the middle of that water.

Ares strode to the dock as the ferryman glided in closer. Ruby watched as the boat’s black hull cut silently through the heavy water.

Charon tied the ferry to the lone post at the end of the mooring. Ares met him there. Ruby pulled her feet from the sticky pools of fear that held them and followed.

“Charon, old friend,” Ares said in a voice that was genial, light even.

The ferryman started at the sound of Ares’s voice. He threw back his cowl and turned toward them.

Her stomach lurched.

His eyes were red. They glowed; faint, like some deep-sea fish that had evolved over the millennia to survive beyond the reach of light. The red eyes slipped past Ares and landed on Ruby. He frowned.

Though his eyes were unnerving, Ruby found that his face was not unkind, not skeletal or malicious, as she had expected. He looked haggard, tired, worn out. His beard was twisted into knots and his cheeks were sunken.

Ares stepped closer to the ferryman and spoke in a low whisper. Ruby crossed her arms over herself as she stood outside their conversation. The onlookers were silent, watching too.

“Ruby.” Ares motioned for her to come closer. The ferryman looked her way again, but she could not read his expression.

“This is Charon,” Ares said when Ruby reached the end of the unsteady dock. “He has agreed to ferry us across.”

She forced herself to smile at the red-eyed creature, though she wanted nothing more than to look away.

“You have the fare,” Charon said without emotion. His voice was rough and thick, as if it hadn’t been used in some time. “It’s Hades you’ll have to contend with, on the other side.” He turned to ready the boat for the trip across the water.