Hades (The God Chronicles #3) (4 page)

“Not who,” he said with a twisted grin, leaning
down, his face coming so close that his hot, sticky breath slapped
my sweaty skin. “
What
.”

In an instant, his features began to change,
his skin seeming to age and burn slightly, eyes glowing black, and
muscles turning to that of something beyond human
strength.

I froze completely, captured by his morphing,
my brain quickly trying to make sense of what was happening in
front of me. Finally, I landed on the thought that it might be good
time to run.

“Fear,” he said, inhaling deeply. “How I love
the smell of it. Especially now, as it mixes with your adrenaline,
fueling all of the darkest parts of your mind, urging you to flee
from me.”

I pressed myself into the trash bin even
harder, as if doing so would give me the space I so felt I needed
to put between us.

“Are you. . . The Devil?” I asked shakily,
watching the smoke around us swirl in patterns that seemed dictated
by nothing other than his soulless eyes.

“Oh no,” he laughed, the sound barking from his
throat. “I’m much older than that, my dear. The Devil wishes he was
me.”

I swallowed hard, wrapping my arms tighter
around my chest. How was I supposed to respond to that? Normally, I
would think someone was messing with me, that I was the victim of a
cruel prank. I’d only ever seen transformations like the one I’d
just witnessed in the movies, though. I’m sure I reeked of the fear
he was smelling by that point.

“What do you want?” I asked as calmly as I
could.

“I knew you’d come around fast,” he said with a
twisted grin, stepping right in front of me, kicking my assailant’s
body out of the way as he did so, and squatting down to my level.
“So many of the others I’ve watched cried for their mommies or
tried to run for their lives. But you—you I knew would be strong
enough.”

“Strong enough for what?”

I shifted uncomfortably, not liking how his
eyes lacked a pupil. I couldn’t tell if his gaze ever left me,
making it feel like he was boring right into my brain, digging
around and looking through all of my secrets.

“You see, Katrina,” he said, his fingers
drawing in the dirt as he continued to stare. “It’s not about what
I
want. It’s about what
you
want and need. I’m only
here to help you out.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, frowning at his
infuriating way of never really answering the questions I asked
him.

“Humans never do.”

My mouth popped open in silence, a retort bit
back as I tried to make sense of his words.

“What is it that I want?” I finally asked,
giving up on trying to figure out what was happening.

“You already know.”

“Okay,” I said, my nerves finally getting the
best of me. “I need to go now. My boss is going to be wondering
where I am and I’m not too sure he’d handle coming out here and
seeing . . . Whatever it is you are out here.”

“Barry thinks you’ve gone home for the
evening,” he said, his white teeth sticking out sharply against the
rest of his dark demeanor.

“Why would he think that?” I laughed nervously,
trying to discretely slide away from him.

“Because you went inside and told him while you
were being attacked out here,” he said, acting as if the statement
made any sense.

“Okay, I’m sorry, Not Satan,” I said,
scrambling to my feet, my back still facing away from him. “But I’m
getting a little weirded out, so . . . You know. Get thee
hence.”

Before my nerve ran out, I turned and made a
break for the door. I hadn’t made it two steps before a form
materialized out of the smoke and grabbed me.

“Sit down, now!”

I froze, eyes wide, as I looked at who had
grabbed me.

It was
me
.

“What the hell?” I yelled, slapping the
familiar hands off my arms as I stumbled back, tripping and falling
into almost the exact space I’d just vacated.

The world started to spin as I looked at the
form, a face and body that I’d seen every day in the mirror. There
was something different about this version, though, something I
couldn’t quite put my finger on. Whatever it was, it made my skin
crawl and heart pound out of added fear.

“Who are you,” I whispered again, mouth going
dry.

“My name is Erebos,” the man said, drawing my
attention back to him, albeit somewhat difficultly.

“What are you?”

“Darkness,” he said coldly. “Born of Chaos, the
nothingness that this world came from. I am the beginning, chased
out by the light and hunger of my own kin, who were in turn
destroyed by their own children. As fate would have it, even the
children were, in turn, overtaken by the very gods that watch over
the earth now.”

“Gods?” I asked, not being able to keep up with
where he was going.

“You’ve heard of Greek mythology, I assume?”
His eyes continued to bore into my being, never wavering from me
despite my obvious fidgeting.

“What is that?” I asked, stealing a glance back
at my copy.

“It is also darkness,” he said, a hint of
annoyance in his tone. “A version of you made from your most secret
desires and thoughts. Essentially, it is you, if you were to follow
those urges.”

“It looks. . . Different.” I swallowed hard,
closing my eyes for a minute, waiting to see if I would wake up and
discover this was a weird dream.

“Greek mythology,” I finally said, trying to
accept that this was my reality now. “You mean like Zeus and all
that?”

“Yes, and all that,” he said snidely. “It’s not
a myth though. If it were, I would not be here.”

“I got that,” I said, taking a deep breath to
steady myself. “You never told me what you wanted from
me.”

“That is because it’s about what you want, as I
did say,” he spat out. “All of your thoughts, your desires, the
darkness inside you, I see it all. That’s how I made this.” He
motioned to the darker me. “I want you to have the things you
really want, to fulfill the dark desires inside of yourself, to
obtain true happiness at last.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have that many real
dark desires,” I said hesitantly, feeling like I was about to be
thrust into condemnation and hellfire or asked to murder
someone.

“Your mother.”

It was all he said, but suddenly, I understood
exactly what he meant.

“Being angry with my mom isn’t a dark desire,”
I argued back, not liking how he could pick at me like that,
without another thought.

“No, but wanting her to pay for what she did to
your family is.”

“I don’t want her to die or anything,” I rushed
to say.

“Wishing death on someone is not the only dark
desire you can have,” he said impatiently. “You want her to pay,
don’t you?”

I fell silent, contemplating his words. I was
angry with her, yes. I wanted her to feel bad, just as I had. I
wanted her to regret ever picking up a drop of alcohol. I wanted
her to feel the pain that she’d caused my father.

“Yes,” I finally whispered, afraid to let such
a confession actually leave my lips.

“Then I will see to it. But only if you do
something for me in return.”

“That’s what I thought,” I breathed out,
waiting to hear what I would be asked to do.

“Learn all you can about Hades.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, confused. “That’s
it?”

“I will come to collect the rest in the near
future,” he said, finally standing back up and stepping away from
me, my copy dissolving back into the smoke. “Beware the
consequences if you haven’t done what I’ve asked.”

He started to disappear into the fog as well,
the alley filling with the light he’d smothered during our odd
discussion.

“What about my mom?” I called after him,
another surge of anxiety and fear overtaking me as his form faded
completely from my sight.

“Beware.”

It was like a whisper on the wind, chased out
by the light bulb shining brightly by the door.

I remained seated by the trash, my arms wrapped
around my blood covered body as I looked for signs of anything
supernatural lurking around me. The body of my attacker lay on the
ground next to me, the horrors of what he’d done still as real as
when I’d been lying trapped underneath him.

Suddenly, my brain still struggling to come out
of the fog it’d been wrapped in, it occurred to me that I was
sitting next to a dead body. It was like a slap in the
face.

I scurried to my feet, backing away from it
until I hit the back wall of the alley. It seemed like I should run
inside and say something, call the cops, do anything to take care
of it, but I couldn’t move. In my mind, a tiny voice whispered to
just leave and not say anything.

What if I was blamed for the murder? I had no
proof it wasn’t me. Of course, I could claim self-defense. I looked
the part for sure.

The voice whispered stronger, urging me to get
out of there before someone found us. I swallowed hard, not knowing
which way to go.

The door to Barry’s started to open slowly and
I heard the noise from inside, someone tossing a bag out of the
door as they stood in the entryway, their back to me as they
laughed loudly at something someone. I could tell it was one of the
servers, but not which one.

And then I made my decision.

By the time the screaming started, I’d already
climbed over the wall and was running through the back parking lot,
seeking the comfort of my own truck to hide me from prying
eyes.

Chapter Four

I flopped back onto my bed, my laptop sliding
off my crossed legs as I huffed in frustration.

How on earth was I supposed to learn all I
could about Hades if there was virtually nothing to know about him?
There were such a small amount of myths that I’d literally read
them all in the space of an hour. A video search had turned up some
interesting documentaries, but they didn’t offer a whole lot of new
information either. The only other thing I could think of would be
to start getting into the more fictitious stories that had come out
recently, but I didn’t think that was what Erebos had intended for
me to do.

The fact of the matter was the Greeks had
feared Hades so much, they didn’t talk about him. Surely, Erebos
would have known this. Why did he ask me to research someone with
so little written history?

What I had found was somewhat disturbing
though; stories of kidnap and rape, resentment, and the horrors of
the Underworld. Hades did not sound like a good guy. What was even
worse, if Erebos was real, then he must be too, including all of
the horrible things he’d done during his existence.

It was still a mystery to me why I needed to
know all of it.

There was a knock on my bedroom door and Daddy
opened it a crack, peeking in.

“Are you decent?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just got out of the shower,” I said,
smiling tightly. “Come on in.”

“Actually, there’s someone here to see you,” he
said grimly, his mouth a tight line.

“Who is it?” I asked, recognizing his bad news
face.

“The sheriff.”

“Oh.”

My heart began to beat faster, despite my brain
urging me to continue on normally.

“I’ll be right down,” I said, successfully
sounding like nothing was wrong. “Just let me run a brush through
my hair.”

“Sounds good.”

The door shut quietly behind him and I let a
quick breath of panic escape me. Something in my gut told me he was
here to ask about my confrontation with the drunk in the
bar.

I checked under my bed to make sure that my
bloody clothes from the night before were still safely locked away
in the box I’d put them in. I’d have to get rid of them soon it
seemed. After that, I did run a brush through my hair, combing out
any tangles I’d gained while lying down.

When I left my room, I could hear Daddy and the
sheriff visiting together. The air in house seemed to be
electrically charged somehow.

Maybe it was just me.

“Sheriff,” I said with a smile, announcing my
entrance into the living room, which sat just off the front entry
way.

“Katrina,” he said, standing as I entered the
room. “I suspect you know why I’m here?”

“Not at all,” I fibbed. “Is something
wrong?”

“Well,” he sighed, taking his seat again once
I’d settled down next to Daddy. “There was a body found in the
alley outside Barry’s last night.”

“You serious?” Daddy asked in surprise, his
eyebrows rising high. “In our small town?”

“I’m afraid so,” the sheriff said grimly. “I’ve
come to see if Katrina here might know anything about
it.”

“Why would I?” I asked, hoping I didn’t appear
as nervous as I felt.