Wrath of Hades (6 page)

“Ethan, we have to get out of here.” Raven tugged at his shirt.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There’s only one way out and I doubt Cerberus is going to let us walk out the front door.”

“There’s another way. We have to get to the shadows.”

Ethan half turned toward her. “What are you talking about?”

Roars and growls grew around them as chaos slowly broke out amid the adult Hell Hounds. The group of teens tightened their circle around Raven and Ethan.

“Raven?” asked Ethan.

“The shadows. We have to go. The Shadow Express is waiting,” she said. Not far from them a fight broke out between two male Hell Hounds. In the matter of seconds, several more fights started.

“We have to go now. It’s our only chance.” Raven tried to push her way out of the group.
“We have to get to the wall and remove one of the tortures so that we can create a shadow.”

Ethan grabbed her hand and led the group to one of the walls. He grabbed the burning torch from its holder and tossed it away, creating a huge shadowed area. “Now what?” he asked turning to Raven.

Raven moved closer to the shadows, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and slowly cleared everything from her head except a picture of the kitchen in her house. She waved her arm in an arc across the shadow. The grayish veil appeared like before, only this time Raven could see her kitchen through the shadowy mist.

“How did you do that?” asked Pauline.

“We have to hurry.” Raven ignored the question.

“Raven?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow.

Raven swallowed nervously. “It seems my soul
brought back some extra abilities with it from Hades.” She looked at the teens gathered around her. “You have to decide now if you want to stay here or go. I can’t make the decision for you and I can’t keep the doorway open very long. It’s too dangerous.”

The teens looked at each other. One by one they started going through the shadowy veil until only Raven and Ethan were left.

“Go,” said Ethan.

Raven shook her head. “I have to be the last one through so I can close it.”

“Ethan!” Cerberus’s voice rose above the chaos. A wave of power sent the Hell Hounds to their knees, stopping all the fighting.

Ethan looked at his dad, staring at him for several seconds. He broke his stare and took Raven’s hand and led her through the shadow door.

CHAPTER 4

I’ve he
ard of people who have such horrible experiences, their minds block out the events. I sometimes wonder if that’s what’s happened to me.  I mean—and it sounds really ridiculous—but I’m really scared of Sam Westing and his house. I just don’t understand why.

I don’t remember anything bad happening to me over at his house. And I don’t remember him doing anything to me. But something about him scares me. I hope one day I’ll be able to remember.

--Raven Weir’s journal

“How can you stand there and say the zombie attack was no big deal?” The power behind Ethan’s anger had the other Hell Hounds whimpering in pain the same way Cerberus’s power affected his Hell Hounds.

“Because it wasn’t a
big deal. It happened. It’s over with.” Raven plopped her fists on her hips and glared at Ethan. “I bought the t-shirt, sprinkled it with holy water, and buried it with the zombie. End of story!” She felt the waves of anger rolling off of him, but ignored them.

“It’s bad enough you ditched Leslie and the girls and went wandering around town on your own, but you were attacked by a zombie. It’s definitely not the end of the story.” Ethan opened and closed his hands over and over, fighting the urge to grab Raven by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. “You could have been seriously hurt or worse. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I needed to stop the thing before I got hurt or worse, someone else got hurt. Besides, the zombie wasn’t very fast moving, and I was more shocked at seeing the thing than anything else. It’s not every day you see a dead body walking around.” There was no way she was going to tell him about the zombie wielding a knife or the fact her hands got sliced open because her powers failed her. That would really send him over the top.

Ethan cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow at Raven.

“Don’t even think it.” Raven poked Ethan’s chest with her finger. “I’m not a zombie.”

“But technically you were dead. And Persephone did return your soul to your body.”

“Key words. My. Soul.” Raven poked him again but a little harder. “It was my soul returned to my body. Therefore, I’m not a zombie. Do you see any rotted body parts lying around?”

“No, but that’s just a technicality.” Ethan grinned at her.

“You are so not funny. For your information, a zombie is a dead body that’s had another person’s soul shoved into it. That’s why it doesn’t function very well.”

“And you know this how?” Ethan crossed his arms.

“Persephone told me, and don’t give me that look.” Raven frowned slightly. “Persephone said it’s a project Hades has been working on for centuries. Would you quit giving me that look? It’s mean and I don’t like it.”

“I’m not being mean to you. I’m worried about your safety and the chances you take with it.” Ethan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The angry waves lessened in intensity, causing
several of the closer Hell Hounds to sigh in relief.

“You need to get a grip on that anger thing of yours.” Raven raised an eyebrow at him. The right corner of her mouth turned up in a little bit of a sneer.

“It would be a lot easier if you wouldn’t put yourself into dangerous situations.”

“It’s not like I do it on purpose or every day. That was the first time in four weeks, and it wasn’t that bad.” Raven rolled her eyes which she knew annoyed Ethan. “Bubble wrapping me is not an option. I am who I am, and I have to learn to fight my own battles. That includes all the bumps and scratches that go with it.”

“Once in four weeks? Then what was that show you put on in front of my dad? What were you thinking? You know better than to provoke a Hell Hound, especially an Alpha Hell Hound.” Ethan ran a hand through his hair. “And of all the ones to pick, you would have to pick Cerberus, the Alpha of all Alphas. You would have gotten more than a few bumps and scratches.”

“I was saving your sorry tail. And by the way, you’re welcome.” Raven’s eyes grew even bluer with her rising anger.

“Do you even realize the danger you were in?”

“Yeah, I knew. But I also knew you and the others happened to be in more danger. And I might add
, it was something you and everyone else neglected to tell me about. Everyone knew what was going on, but decided to keep me in the dark. Wrong thing to do! I need to know what’s going on so I can help.”

“I made everyone keep quiet about it because I knew you would do something really stupid, like, oh—try to rescue us.”

“So my rescuing you was stupid? Well, excuse me for caring!” Raven’s eyes burned with angry unshed tears. She quickly turned her back to him so he couldn’t see the tears, but found herself facing several teens standing around the living room. They almost immediately averted their eyes away from her, but she knew they were still watching her and listening to the conversation between her and Ethan.

She took several deep breaths, letting each one out slowly. Her right hand automatically reached for the silver pendant. The feel of the smooth silver disc was more soothing and comforting than the deep breathing. With her head up Raven walked through the living room, away from Ethan.

“Where are you going?”

Raven stopped and closed her eyes. Slowly she turned around to face Ethan and opened her eyes. “To keep myself from doing something really stupid, like, oh I don’t know—like maybe helping you. I’m going to my room because I don’t want to do a stupid thing like that.”

“Raven, you don’t need to go.”

“You’ve made it very clear you don’t need or want my help, so there’s no point staying here in your way. If anything comes up, handle it yourself.” She turned back around and started walking out of the room again.

Raven was suddenly lifted off of her feet. Two seconds later, she found herself facing Ethan and wrapped up tightly in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s not going to work.” Raven struggled to get out of his hug.

Ethan refused to let her go. “Your safety is my number one priority. Everything else is secondary.”

“You can’t go around calling me stupid because you don’t like what I do. It’s mean and hurtful. You may not like my actions but they’re not stupid.”

“You’re right.
I shouldn’t have called you stupid. But you take too many chances,” said Ethan.

“And as the Guardian, I’m going to have to fight a lot of battles, many of which will most likely be
more than just dangerous. You’re just going to have to deal with it because I can’t change who I am any more than you can change who and what you are.”

Ethan grunted.

Raven let her head rest on Ethan’s chest. She could feel and hear his heart beating. “And my priority is the safety of everyone else. We’ll always disagree about the safety of others being more important than my safety, you realize that, don’t you?”

“I know. And I’ll say something you’ll think is mean.” He let her go but not before he gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head. “Let’s get everyone situated.”

Raven nodded. “My room’s huge. There’s no reason why some of the girls can’t move in with me.” Raven looked around Ethan at Pauline and several of the girls standing by her.

A couple of weeks ago, Diane moved Raven into the newly cleaned and remodeled master suite. Raven’s protests fell onto deaf ears. With her mom still missing, Raven didn’t feel right moving into the room, until Diane pointed out Suzanne hadn’t used the room since they moved back.

“We can’t do that,” said Pauline shaking her head. The girls around her all shook their heads too.

“Why not?” asked Raven.

“It wouldn’t be right,” said Pauline.

Raven shook her head. “It’s not right for you not having a place to sleep. The bedroom’s huge. It’s really too big for me. We can get some air mattresses or cots.”

“You’re not sharing your room. We’ll be fine,” said Pauline. The girls around her nodded their heads in agreement.

“I leave for a couple of hours only to come home to a slumber party in progress?” Diane stood in the far doorway to the living room.

“Something like that,” said Raven in a small voice.

“I take it the judgment went good?” asked Diane.

“Something like that.” Ethan echoed Raven’s words.

“What’s going on?” Diane crossed her arms.

The room grew quieter.

“Raven, didn’t I tell you not to leave the house?”

Raven blushed. “Technically I didn’t go outside of the house.”

“Technically?
What did you do? Explain yourself.” Dian sighed and shook her head.

Raven knew being the Guardian wasn’t going to get her out of trouble with Diane. “I used the Shadow Express to rescue them.”

“Raven, you left the house when I told you not to. What were you thinking? What if another zombie had of attacked you?”

“Great! Here we go again,” grumbled Raven.
“There were no zombies were I went, and no I did not go outside the house to get where I went.”

“Excuse me?” Diane’s eyes reflected the anger in her voice. “You could have been killed.”

“Not you too!” Raven threw her hands up in frustration. “Yes, I died once. You don’t have to keep reminding me. Believe it or not, I was there! I lived through each painful moment of the whole process, and yes it was painful.”

Diane sighed. “We’re concerned about keeping you alive. That’s priority.”

“First, I don’t plan on getting myself killed again. For one, having your soul dumped back into your body hurts really, really bad. It’s way worse than dying. In fact, dying is the easy part. And second, I’ve got it on good authority Persephone won’t be able to intercept and return my soul a second time.” Raven flopped down in the nearest chair. “So the next time I die, I’m dead. There are no re-dos or a get out of Hades free card. I’ve already used it and I can’t get another one.”

“I thought having your soul returned was a lot easier than dying.” Pauline looked a little pale.

“Dying’s easy. You just slip into a black void. The whole soul back into the body number is definitely not something I plan on going through again. I’d rather have my arm ripped off. It would be a whole lot less painful.”

Diane walked over to Raven and knelt down. “How do you know Persephone won’t be able to return your soul again?” she asked softly.

Raven leaned forward. “Because she told me so when she came to see me after you left. Hades kind of put extra guards in the soul processing areas. I get the feeling he suspects she’s the one who stole my soul and returned it to me before it was processed, and he’s not very happy about that.”

Diane laced her fingers together. “That wasn’t her only reason to visit, was it?”

Raven shook her head. “She came to warn me about Hades.”

“Raven, what are you not telling us?” Ethan sat down on the arm of the chair.

“Why is it you always think I’m not telling you everything?”

“Because you leave out details,” said Ethan.
“Typically the more important details.”

“And the details are what we need so we can understand the whole situation,” said Diane.

“Whatever. You’re acting like I purposely keep things from you.” Raven crossed her arms and looked at Ethan. “I do believe that’s someone else’s job description, like the person who conveniently forgot to tell me about trial and death sentence he was facing.”

“Raven?”

The energy rolling off of Ethan tickled Raven’s nose causing her to sneeze. “Would you stop that,” she said as she rubbed her nose. “Besides, you know it doesn’t work on me. It just makes me want to swat you like a bug.”

“It makes you think about me,” said Ethan.

“If that’s how you want me to think about you—like a big bug that is.” Raven snorted. She didn’t think leaving out the little details was such a big deal. Hades was going to be a problem. Wasn’t that good enough? And Ethan was a little too bigheaded.”

“Well?” Diane looked almost like she was praying with her fingers intertwined the way they were.

“Persephone said something about the zombies being one of Hade’s pet projects. Something he’s been working on for a long time. She just confirmed what we already thought.”

“Hades is behind the zombies? Can this get any worse?” Billy started pacing around the room. “It’s always something with those three! It never ends.”

“Calm down. Let’s go to the kitchen and get you something to eat.” Pauline stepped in front of Billy and forced him to turn toward the kitchen. “Let’s get something together for everyone.” Everyone except for Raven, Diane, and Ethan disappeared into the kitchen.

“You aren’t Hell H
ounds! You’re all chickens!” Raven yelled after them. “I’m not even hungry.”

“Raven.”
Diane shook her finger at Raven.

“What?” Raven shrugged her shoulders.

“Hades is behind the zombies?” asked Ethan, changing the subject.

“Maybe.
Persephone thinks so but said any of his minions could have done it too. They still have access to the soul process area just like Persephone used to have,” said Raven. She stared at her fingernails, wishing she could be a little girlier like Ari and Bree. The few times she had attempted putting on nail polish had been disasters. She was doing good to keep her fingernails neatly clipped.