The mists skittered and rolled over the dark rock at their feet. Misery mixed in the dark vapor, scuttling over their shoes and legs, a tangible emotion with spindly limbs. Unease crawled over Athan, an itch just under the skin that refused to relent. The sulfuric stench of rotten eggs clung to them, and the sound of lapping waves was louder, yet they still hadn’t reached the Acheron.

Several hours later, Athan called for a rest.

“Please tell me we’re almost there.” Dahlia’s eyes were wide, her face glistening with moisture.

Odd, it wasn’t hot in the Underworld as many humans thought hell would be. Not that it was cold either. The dank, musty air was warm but barely uncomfortable.

“We should rest,” he said. Athan thought back to the other times he’d been in the Underworld with his father. Had it ever taken this long to get from a portal to the River? He pulled the dead man’s sleeve. “Stay here with us.”

The apparition narrowed his eyes. Amongst the mottled scar tissue from his burns, an angry scar ran from his temple to his jaw. His mouth opened, but whatever argument he had was lost to them in silent movement.

“Your voice is lost until judgment,” Athan told him.

The man flipped him off and then sat, the lower half of his body disappearing into the thick vapor.

“It looks like your charisma doesn’t carry to the dead.” Xan chuckled to himself, as he swung his pack to the side and pulled out a pouch of water. With his teeth, he tore the corner and began to drink.

Athan wanted to flip him off. “I guess not.”

But it was more than that. There was something dark about this man’s life force. Something that made Athan uneasy.

Dahlia wiped her sleeve across her face. “Do you guys feel that?”

She pointed at the haze moving across the barren landscape.

Xan paused, holding the pouch of water inches from his mouth. “Feel what?” He kicked at the mist, and his pack swung forward. The vapor swirled away from his boots, exposing the packed gray earth. “What do you feel?”

Dahlia shrugged her pack off her back and set the canvas bag on the ground. She fumbled to open the side pocket, the zipper snagging on the fabric.

“Bloody Hades,” she swore, her voice cracking with emotion. She tugged at the corner of a water packet. As the pouch broke free of the pack, she stumbled back and landed on her butt.

“Shite!”

“I’m fine.” But the warble in her voice betrayed her lie.

Athan extended his hand. He’d let her keep her pride. “Of course.”

Her skin was cold and clammy, and he could feel her desperation and fear.

She snatched her hand back. With a swallow, she rubbed at the skin through the broken fabric. Her normally warm, russet skin was a blotchy gray around the tear. “I said I’m fine.”

Athan’s protest died on his lips as Xan stepped up next to them and whispered, “I’m not worried that Dahlia fell. She could kick your arse any day, pretty boy.” He pointed to where Dahlia’s pack had dropped into the mist. “Something’s not right.”

The dark eddies covered any trace of the bright orange fabric of her pack. Dahlia leaned over to grab her bag, but her hand swung through the haze and came up empty. “What the—?”

“It’s gone.”

Dahlia’s hand sunk into the darkness, and she shuffled around in circles until she was far away from where she’d dropped the pack. Athan stooped low and joined her, his own pack making his movements awkward and unsteady.

“I said it’s gone.” Xan pointed at the center of their search area. “As soon as you let go, it disappeared.”

Athan stood and pushed back the panic crawling in his chest. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” They’d just need to ration more strictly.

Dahlia stood, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She wiped at her face again. “Bloody Hades.”

Xan wrapped her in a hug. “It’s fine, Dahl. We can get by on a little less.”

Exactly what Athan was thinking. Not that big of a deal.

Her dark curls covered her face as she buried her head in Xan’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

There was something so wrong about watching Dahlia cower. Worry gnawed at his heart. “Do you want me to take you back?”

He wasn’t even sure how to get back at this point, but there was no doubt Dahlia had been injured by the Skia blade. He had no idea how the wound would fester here in Hades’s domain, but Athan wasn’t going to take chances. He couldn’t live with anyone else dying.

Dahlia seemed to move in a blur. She was away from Xan and holding Athan by the front of his shirt in the blink of an eye. “Are you saying I’m not good enough to be here? Do you think I’ll slow you down?”

Athan drew back from her vehemence. “I . . .”

He looked at Xan, but the son of Ares just shrugged. Great. Of course the war god’s son wouldn’t help.

Athan took a deep breath. “I know that blade touched your skin.”

“Bloody hell!” Xan surged forward and grabbed Dahlia’s sleeve. Before either of them could protest, he poked his fingers through the tear in the fabric and ripped it through to the hem. His thumb ran over her skin, and then he glared at Athan. “It’s fine. What are you talking about?”

Athan looked at his companions, and pointing at the ashen skin of Dahlia’s forearm he asked, “You can’t see it?”

Xan shook his head even as worry crept over his features. His gaze went to his cousin, and he tugged on her arm.

Dahlia said nothing, but grimaced when he brushed over the wound again.

Athan pulled her arm away from Xan. Cradling it, Athan ran his fingers over the dusky patch of skin. The cold bit at him. Searing pain like a Skia blade stabbed at his fingertips, and he jerked away.

Dahlia flinched and pulled the ends of the fabric together. “It’s not broken.”

He pinched his lips together. Strange. “But you can feel it.”

She nodded.

He let out a slow breath. “I can feel it. Somehow it’s in your skin. Just as if he’d cut you.”

She nodded again.

“Shite!” Xan pushed Athan out of the way. “Seriously? Why didn’t you say something?”

She gritted her teeth and set her shoulders. “Because I wasn’t going to skive out on you. We’re here for Hope. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” She looked around the darkness and pointed into the mist. “That gormless arse is wandering off, Athan. Go get him, and let’s go.”

Athan jogged after the apparition, even while something about Dahlia’s words nagged at him. The dead man continued to pick up the pace, and Athan had to push himself to keep the man in sight. Thoughts turned to panic. If the man escaped, there was no way they’d get across on Charon’s ferry. He pushed himself harder, going from jog to run, to an all-out sprint when the man disappeared into the blackness.

The sounds of waves lapping against a shoreline grew, and the ground seemed to crumble beneath Athan’s feet. He tripped forward and stumbled, barely catching himself before he fell into the water.

They had arrived at the Acheron.

Death smelled like overripe fruit and mold. A bitter tang wafted off the river, causing an ache of despair to swell in his chest. Athan stepped away and looked around.

There, in the swirling mists, were dozens and dozens of dead milling around at the water’s edge. The color leached from their skin, their paleness much like a Skia’s, but their eyes lacked the total blackness of Hades’s minions. If that weren’t enough, the confusion, worry, and in some cases fear etched on their features eased any concern about them being Skia.

Expressions were the only way to determine what they were trying to communicate. Some looked to be pleading; others emanated anger. Somehow the apparitions were corporeal to one another. Two men shoved a third toward the water’s edge.

Athan watched as the man stumbled into the river, his face morphing from anger to horror. Hands, dozens of them, broke the surface. Bony fingers, meaty hands, scrawny arms . . . all the same pallid color, clamoring, reaching for the dead man’s soul. The water surged, and bodies crawled over top of one another. Gruesome creatures, once human, clawed at anything in their way as they tried to pull the man into the water.

Athan’s stomach turned.

The apparition’s mouth opened in a silent scream as he struggled to free himself.

The water surged again. A bald head broke the surface. Loose skin flapped over his ear, the bone of his skull punctured through, with gray matter oozing from the wound. His emaciated frame pulsed with power in a stark contradiction to his physical appearance. The zombie-like monster opened his mouth, revealing rotten, broken teeth. The flesh from one hand was gone, only the bones remaining, and the other hand was nothing more than a stump of rotting meat. The creature leaped and wrapped around the man. The water-demon’s broken arm encircled the doomed man’s neck, and he brought his mouth down in a hard bite below the ear. Black blood spurted, and the frenzy of river creatures surged.

Athan dropped to his knees as he retched. He closed his eyes, the splashing waves the only indication of the violence ensuing in the river. The bitter smell of ash singed his nostrils. He looked at the ground, only to see round river rock washed smooth over eternity. The rocks were darker underneath, darker with moisture from the river Acheron.

He jerked up and saw Xan’s face washed with revulsion. He brought his hand to his mouth and turned away. If Xan couldn’t take it, Athan knew he couldn’t either. Keeping his eyes on Xan’s back, he moved toward the other demigods.

Glancing at Dahlia, he cringed. Her head was tilted to the side, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

A heavy splash came from behind, and Athan scurried forward.

“What the Kracken are those?” Xan faced Athan and glanced back at the river. “Are those zombies? Hera and Zeus. And what were they eating? Was it one of the dead?”

Weird. “You could see those sea-zombies, but you couldn’t see what they were eating?”

Xan raised his eyebrows. “That’s what I said.” He turned to Dahlia. “Could you see what they were eating?”

She shrugged and pinned Athan with a glare. “You’ve never seen them before?”

Athan opened his mouth to respond, but Xan beat him to it.

“Don’t go swimming, Dahl.”

Her glare shifted to her cousin. “At least I can swim.”

No way. They were in the Underworld, at the banks of the river of death and . . . “You still can’t swim?”

Xan rolled his shoulders, but the feathering tic in his neck gave him away. “I really never thought it would come to this.”

Athan chuckled. “Don’t fall in.”

Dahlia snorted. “For real.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Xan muttered. “Is our dead guy around here?” He waved his hands, and a few spirits flinched as he moved through them.

Athan scanned the crowd now milling around with somber faces. The hostility had faded, but anxiety pulsed off them as their gazes darted to the river. He glanced through the pack of deceased trying to find their patient, but couldn’t . . . Ah, there he was. Holy. Hades. What was he doing?

“Do you see him?”

Athan closed his eyes and swallowed. He glanced back at the river and cringed. “Yes. I see him.”

His palms tingled, and he met Xan’s gaze. With a wave Athan said, “He’s over there.”

Athan watched Xan’s features morph into incredulity.

“He’s at the bloody river?” His narrowed gaze went from Athan to the river and back again. “For real? Do the dead not see . . . that . . . those zombies?”

Athan nodded. “Yes, they can see them.”

Xan’s pale skin blanched further. “I’m so glad I can’t touch the dead.”

Right. There must be something seriously wrong with this man’s soul for him to be drawn to the river.