Chapter Fifty-Seven

Someone picked Sophie up. Her clothes felt sweaty and damp, and everything in her body tingled and stung. Opening her eyes sent stabs of pain into her skull. From the arms of whoever carried her—it wasn’t Adrian or anyone she knew; she guessed that much—she saw the leaping flames of a fire. Not the fire that had killed her parents and razed her house. A smaller one, in an outdoor fire pit, though still large for a bonfire. Beyond the fire was nothing but blackness. Her vision wouldn’t focus, and it hurt to keep her eyes open, so she shut them and listened, though the dizzy pounding in her head gave the voices a dreamlike aspect.

“He’ll come soon.” The voice rattled Sophie’s nerves, her body reacting even before her mind caught up and recognized the voice as Quentin’s. “Let’s keep it simple. Quick and done.”

“A grenade would’ve been fun,” another female voice grumped. Probably the red-haired woman.

“You got to fire your rocket,” Quentin said. “Don’t sulk. You going to be ready for this?” The question seemed directed at someone else.

“Yes,” said the person holding Sophie—a man with a tentative voice.

“She’s still out?” Quentin asked.

“I think so,” the man said.

“With any luck she’ll be waking up just in time to see her boyfriend burn,” the younger woman said.

Sophie twitched and writhed, panic making it impossible to keep still.

“Whoa.” The man clutched her to keep her from falling.

“Hold her,” the young woman barked. “I got her.”

A few quick steps approached, then another horrible jolt of electricity rocketed through Sophie. She would have screamed, but her vocal cords felt paralyzed. The pain closed around her head and she blacked out again.

Zoe paced the sidewalk like a caged lion, her senses grasping wildly for any hint of what the Fates wanted her to do. But her own agitation warped her judgment, and she doubted every idea that came to her.

When Niko arrived a few minutes after Adrian left, Zoe threw herself at him and clutched his arms. “Adrian’s gone to them! But we can’t follow or they’ll kill her! What do I do? How do I fix it?”

Niko stared at her, then at the smoking house and the fire trucks, then at Liam huddled on the ground with Tabitha and Freya. He looked at Zoe again with sharp green eyes. “Tell me. Quickly.”

She explained what happened.

He gave a short, impatient sigh, and squinted a moment down the highway, where cars still slowed as they passed the destruction.

“Right,” he said. “I’m the sneakiest. I’ll do this.” He started past Zoe, back toward the field.

“Where are you going?” she called.

He turned to answer as he walked backward away from her. “To see Thanatos where they can’t see me, and figure out a way to save our idiot friends.”

“But if they do see you—”

“They won’t.”

“But Adrian said not to follow!”

“As if he gives me orders. Oh, and if you can send any good luck spells our way, we’d all appreciate it, love.” He leaped the fence into the dark.

She bit her lower lip hard. Anxiety now wracked her for Niko’s sake as well as Sophie’s and Adrian’s. But a good luck spell, protection even—which would be better—that was a useful idea.

Who to direct it to, though? Spreading it to all three of her friends meant a weaker spell, diluted among them like that. Choosing one would be best. Adrian might be muddled with grief and self-sacrifice; she could help clear his mind. Or Niko could use her help in being extra-speedy and hard to spot.

But no. Sophie needed her most. Sophie had no immortal strength, and was being held hostage, probably already injured. Quentin and her thugs didn’t expect any special strength or fighting ability from her; they expected despair and surrender…

Zoe rushed toward Tab and Freya. Kiri chased after her with a worried yelp.

Throwing herself onto the damp, cold ground on her knees in front of them, Zoe announced, “Ladies. I need you.”

Adrian lowered the bus to a stop between the tall evergreens on the mountainside. Darkness as thick as the Underworld’s surrounded him, his horses’ glow illuminating only a small patch of the forest. He climbed down, tied them up, and murmured, “Thank you” to each horse. With cold, shaking fingers he touched the metal side of the bus one last time, then turned around.

Sophie wasn’t far off, a hundred meters perhaps. He switched realms.

The bonfire glared into being, piercing his eyes even at that distance and from between trees. He raised a hand to shield his eyes a moment, then examined the scene when his vision adjusted. The fire burned in a pit outside a ramshackle wood house. The house sat alone in a meadow at the end of a thin gravel road, nothing but black, steep mountains and trees surrounding it.

Three people were stationed around the fire, their backs to it, each watching a section of the meadow: Quentin, a young woman with a ponytail, and a young man. The young man rested on his knees rather than standing like the other two. He held Sophie unconscious across his lap. And he held a gun to her head.

Adrian entertained the briefest fantasy: he’d dive in there, snatch her away before anyone knew what was happening, maybe break the man’s arms the way he’d done to Wilkes not long ago…

But Sophie wasn’t conscious this time. She couldn’t cooperate with a rescue. One false step on Adrian’s part, and they’d kill her as mercilessly as they’d killed Isabel and Terry.

And more to the point, wasn’t Quentin right? Wouldn’t it be best to end all this? Look what Adrian had done to Sophie, to her life. If he loved her—which he did; it was the defining aspect of his eternal soul—then he would give her back what was left of her life by removing himself from it. The choice and the attempt at balance were tearing her apart. He had given himself as a sacrifice before. He could do it again.

Maybe next life they’d have more luck. He could hope for that.

He walked forward and emerged from between the trees, hands raised in surrender.

The young man spotted him first, and shouted, “There!”

At that moment Adrian noticed a soul-signal that his distressed mind had ignored till now. He knew one of these souls. It was a soul he rarely bothered thinking about, and had assumed to be far away, but here he was. Ares. The young woman was Ares.

It seemed it should matter. But after a moment of consideration, Adrian realized it didn’t, in fact. This woman hadn’t eaten the pomegranate; didn’t know she’d been an immortal herself once. Adrian could tell her so, but the woman wouldn’t believe it. No, for tonight, it wouldn’t change a thing. It served only as a mirthless bit of irony, or fate. And it was also a tidbit of hope, for in future, in the Underworld, he’d tell his friends to track Ares in order to find a member of Thanatos. They’d gain a valuable lead in their fight.

But for this battle, the identity of this soul was irrelevant. And Adrian hated even to think of the ongoing fight. Why couldn’t it end?

At least for him it was about to.

The young woman in her police uniform ran toward him with her handgun. He stood still in the cold meadow, hands raised, and gazed in defeat at the uniform, reckoning it was likely one of the same ones someone had worn while springing Quentin from prison in October.

Without so much as a triumphant remark, the woman aimed the gun at him in both hands, holding it point-blank against his forehead. She fired. The bang and the explosion was the last thing he knew.

Tabitha wiped the tears off her cheeks and stood, as ordered by Zoe, to go find a trustworthy neighbor or friend to leave Liam with.

She jogged across the crowded driveway on trembling legs, heading for Dr. Marcy Baskin, the town veterinarian. They had all brought their pets to her for as long as Tab could remember. The woman was in her fifties now. Wearing a plaid wool hat and a pink coat, she stood speaking with other neighbors. Distress etched lines in all their faces. Dr. Baskin had seen Tab and Sophie and practically everyone in Carnation through the grief of putting cats and dogs to sleep. She could be trusted now with Liam, even in a far worse grief.

Could it be that a couple of days ago, Tab had cared for nothing as much as her connections to celebrities and sexy goddesses? That crap didn’t matter. It was fun, but it was not the center of a person’s life. She had begun to grasp that last night after the failed car bomb. All day, all she’d been imagining, even while Freya teased her into smiles, was what would’ve happened if Zoe hadn’t caught that bomb in time. Tab a soul in the Underworld, her parents agonized, innocent bystanders also killed, like The Luigis’ drummer who was getting into the car next to her… She had been calming down these past hours by reminding herself those tragedies hadn’t happened, and she didn’t need to deal with them, and thank the gods for all that.

But now Sophie and Liam did have to.

A home, like this one now in smoking ruins; and loved ones, like these in tears for their loss—those were the center of your life. Not fame, not parties, not showing the world how cool you were.

Tabitha was going to lift up Sophie and Liam from this tragedy if it killed her. This family needed a dying-and-rising god to show them there would be life after death.

Babbling and pulling on Dr. Baskin’s arm, Tab got the message across that she needed the vet to stay with Liam and Rosie for a while, just half an hour or so, while they fetched his sister.

“Of course, yes,” Dr. Baskin assured. She followed Tab over and knelt to pet the trembling Rosie, now back in Liam’s lap. Pumpkin, Tab had heard, was killed in the fire. Someone had found his little body. She couldn’t think of it now; she’d only fall apart crying and that wouldn’t help anyone.

Liam sat with one hand on Rosie, his head dipped low. Curled in upon himself, he rocked slowly forward and back. Someone had draped a blanket around him. Lately he had been looking tall and defiant and adolescent, but now he seemed to have reverted to the little boy Tabitha had watched grow up.

She wanted to crumple next to him and hug him for at least the next week. But Zoe was pulling on her arm, and telling the vet not to leave Liam’s side or let anyone else take him anywhere, no matter who; he had to stay right here until they brought Sophie back or at least brought news of her.

Dr. Baskin understood and promised.

Zoe, running, led Tabitha and Freya and Kiri out into the dark field. She had them all sit in a circle, though the ground was sopping wet and muddy. Chilly water soaked through the seat and legs of Tab’s jeans, making her shiver. The brown grass reached over their heads. Its marshy smell closed around them.

“Grab hands,” Zoe said. They linked hands. Kiri lay in the center, her back nestled against Zoe.

“What is it you’re going to do?” Freya asked.

“Send Sophie our strength. I could do it alone, but it wouldn’t be as strong. The three of us together—three immortals, sending her everything we’ve got—that might give her a fighting chance. A chance to survive whatever they’re doing to her.” Zoe closed her eyes, gripping Tab’s hand harder. “And a chance to stop Adrian from sacrificing himself.”

Freya gasped, and Tab’s heart kicked against her chest.

“Is that what he’s doing?” Freya asked.

Zoe nodded. “So we aren’t letting him, yeah? Quiet. Close your eyes and concentrate. Focus on Sophie.”

Tabitha obeyed. Sophie. Her awesome best friend, the only one who had stood by her steadfastly when the rest of the world was heartless jerks…Sophie, whose life had just been torn apart and who might be on the verge of having her boyfriend turned into an intangible soul as well…

The blaze of power felt like a blast of heat from the hottest of summer days. Tab opened her mouth in a breath of wonder, but managed to keep her eyes closed, sensing it was important to do so. Heat and love and strength flowed through Zoe and Tab and Freya—and Kiri too, she guessed—swirling in a circle, faster and faster. Tab held on, wanting to sob in humility or laugh in joy.

Then the flow converged into one column, and shot upward and away from them like a meteor.

Tab went limp, as did the other two. Her hands fell out of their grasp. She toppled over backward and opened her eyes, and blinked at the cloudy night sky, barely conscious. But still she focused on Sophie, to the degree she could focus at all.