Chapter Twenty-Two

“You are so brave and quiet. I forget you are suffering.”

—Ernest Hemingway

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” I said to Papa, who was kneeling with me at Brent’s side. The Stygians around us hadn’t run headlong out of Lethe yet because there were too many blocking their path. I was sure, however, that if there were fewer of us around, they would have.

“It had to be done,” was Papa’s diplomatic response, but I read the underlying message just fine. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I met the son of a bitch,” was what Papa was really thinking.

“Brent.” I tapped his face, avoiding the knot on his cheek. “Wake up.”

“Is he dead?” squeaked a female Reaper. She was young, likely not old enough to begin her career as a Reaper, which might have explained her limited knowledge on how things worked in Styx.

“No,” I replied. “It’s not that easy to kill an Eidolon.”

“Wha-what’s that?” she said.

“It’s a Grim Reaper for all of us, dingus,” said a boy who, from their similar looks and the tone is his voice, had to be her brother.

I wanted to tell the boy that I was in my mid-twenties before I learned what an Eidolon was through firsthand experience and that he shouldn’t be so mean to his sister. Additionally, I wanted to whack him on the head as Mama would’ve done. Instead, I looked at his sister and said, “Everyone dies. Eidolons are here to make sure we Stygians go safely and smoothly. They are our guards.”

Brent moved under my hands. I turned to see his blue eyes fluttering open. He put a hand to his cheek and winced. And as quickly as he went down from Papa’s hit, he climbed to his feet and gave everyone around him a discomfited glance. This wasn’t how Eidolons were supposed to behave, most of all Styx’s top Eidolon. But even they had breaking points.

Some Stygians clapped when Brent stood to his full height. The rest of them began pushing their way out of the tunnel to Lethe and back into the human world. I expected this. Not everyone would be cut out to face the Trivials. We were stronger in higher numbers, but only if we were fighters. The children weren’t. The ones pushing and screaming to leave weren’t either.

My hope remained that those who could fight would stay, and they’d be just enough to help us neutralize the Trivials. As those Stygians retreated, climbing over body parts and around more stubborn rebels, I watched our numbers quickly diminish. What troubled me the most was hearing the departing ones tell Stygians further down the line to turn back.

Those of us close to the core of this nightmare knew what we were in for. The rest did not, and I could not fault them for not knowing. I could only wish that they’d stand by our sides. I didn’t want to go into Lethe to fight Trivials with just a handful of allies.

But as more and more retreated, the band of Kentuckian Reapers wove their way to us. In addition, so did Clover, Azim, and their group of rebels. And bringing up the rear of our small infantry were the Watchmen who had held the doors open for us. There were a few stragglers, ones who weren’t familiar to me but seemed ready to put their lives on the line for our cause. The group of punk teenagers I spotted near the fountain were there.

But it was the final group of Stygians to arrive that made me feel like we might have a fighting chance. I spotted her red eyes. Neema was here and I knew that Delia must have worked her diplomacy as I had asked her to. Neema, small but hardly fragile, shoved her way through our fellow Stygians to meet me face-to-face. Her dreadlocks were pulled into a ponytail, and she smelled of lavender like she had recently showered and primped for this big day. Those red eyes narrowed on me before she pulled me into a hug, one I never expected from the Eidolon.

“Delia is a master at persuasion,” she whispered in my ear. “I will stand with you, Dormier.”

While I didn’t return her hug at first, now I put my arms around her, feeling her small body pressed to mine. Inside of her, however, I sensed that there was a power that rivaled Brent’s.

“Thank you,” I said back.

She unfolded from our embrace and looked around at the allies that remained, ready to enter fully into Lethe and face the Trivials. I did the same, taking stock of everyone. Several more Stygians marched down the ramp, carefully avoiding the bloodied limbs and heads of the dead. We were nearly fifty strong.

“But I’m afraid as we made our way here, they captured Delia and Nicodemus from me,” Neema confessed.

“Do you know where they are?” I asked, panic trying to overtake me.

“They are in there.” Neema pointed down the hallway where we were headed, even though every single one of us dreaded entering.

“Do you think they’re still alive?” I shuddered, thinking of my two beloved friends inside Lethe, alone, waiting for help. I refused to consider that they were dead like the poor souls in this hallway. My heart told me they were alive. Neema’s red eyes confirmed she felt the same. But were they okay? I could not tell.

“They won’t kill them until they get what they want,” Neema clarified.

“That must mean they’re still alive,” Papa said.

“For now,” Neema added. She was right, too. They could already be dead, their severed limbs spread out in a macabre death scene. I wouldn’t accept that possibility, however. They were alive, had to be, and we would save them, clear out Lethe of the Trivials, and restore Styx.

“We need to move now. You feeling better?” I asked Brent who still looked a little uncomfortable and downtrodden from his brief meltdown. He nodded.

“Are we ready?” I asked the rest of the group.

No one was quick to shout “Yes!” and run straight through those doors and into the heart of the stench from hell. Truth is, neither was I. I understood Brent’s meltdown and the masses retreating back from where they came. Rebellions weren’t simple. They couldn’t be predicted. What some thought would be a protest and nothing more was turning into a nightmare they would not endure. They were not weak. They were simply unprepared.

For those of us who had faced the demons of our world, monsters were par for the course, and we didn’t like it. But some of us had to be the ones to forge ahead. If not, then the Trivials would win and, in turn, so would Marin from the depths of his grave. There were fighters and destroyers of the status quo like us and the peacemakers and rebuilders like those walking back to the Fontaine de Tourny.

Brent was tired of being a fighter, like me. But we had no other choice.

“Look, this is going to suck,” I said. “All I ask is that we don’t kill the Trivials. They were wronged too, like the Scriveners, like all of us. Let’s get in, subdue them, and end this. Okay?”

“Not exactly the most inspiring speech,” Neema added, her arms folded across her chest.

“I’m not William fucking Wallace.”

She rolled her eyes like she expected more from me. I didn’t have anything else to give that didn’t need to pour into saving the world. There wasn’t time for thoughtful words or rallying the troops. That would come another day or another revolution.

“Let’s go,” I said and spun on my heels to head straight into hell for what I hoped would be the last time.

…

For those of us who had already spent time in Lethe, stepping into a hotel hallway donned with elegant brass sconces, wallpaper, plush, detailed carpet was not as much of a surprise as it was for the others. Lethe looked much like Le Château Frontenac, the most photographed hotel in the world. If humans happened to sneak into Lethe, which according to Brent had never been done, they’d think they were lost in a forgotten wing of the hotel. The only difference was that Lethe was fully underground in Cape Diamond. No windows. No light. This place was a crypt where Death lived and breathed.

The sweet stink of rotting flesh lingered. My nose had grown used to it, however. I didn’t feel the need to retch or cover my face. The fact that I didn’t worried me. Had I become so used to death that the putridness of it was normal for me?

My team followed closely behind. Brent, then Papa, Neema, and a handful of other Stygians who weren’t put off by the bloody body parts.

“Where do we go?” asked Neema.

It was a good question. I didn’t know. Lethe didn’t come with placards on the walls giving direction to points of interest. All I knew from my still-foggy memories of this place was there was a central point where everything happened. It was where my trial was held, where I came face-to-face with Marin for the first time.

“We need to get to the Heart,” Brent said as he thumbed through his little timeworn journal. That was the very journal I had found, the one he used to navigate around Lethe after leaving and returning, since Marin had always stolen Stygian’s memories of everything that happened within his realm before they left him. We’d used that journal to find our way into Lethe to save Brent from execution. It was a gift. And now, as he pointed to the map he had drawn decades ago, it was, again, a gift to our cause.

“We head down this way.” He gestured down the hallway. “Then make a left toward the center of Lethe.”

“Let’s go then.” Neema shoved past him.

“I suggest we stick together,” he said.

They disregarded his suggestion by forging ahead. At that moment, I felt something eery in the air. I could not see it. The sensation was a wave of energy, pulsating against my eardrums. My legs grew weak as if they had lost control. I didn’t fall. Neither did anyone else around me.

Neema and our followers braced themselves against the hotel walls. They looked at the ceiling, then at the floor. We did, too. What was this? What could possibly send us off-kilter like we had one too many drinks?

“They’re coming,” Papa said, rubbing his ears.

I heard them a second after Papa spoke. The whispering. The scuttle of many feet over the carpet. When I had first encountered the Trivials in Montana, they had used mind tricks to create a real-life nightmare in the forest. I had been alone. I had heard feet running over leaves and voices echoing from one side of the forest to another. They had intended to terrify me and leave me, if they had their way, in several pieces in front of my cabin.

Trivials knew how to strike up fear in the bravest of us. They were better at it than Eidolons because they didn’t leave us in a pile of dust if they killed us. They left us dismembered.

The lights from the sconces flickered, sending us in and out of darkness. Some Stygians cried out. Some shouted to keep together. I watched Neema looking up the hallway at us and back to the other side where surely the Trivials would emerge.

“Brent,” I said as I grabbed his sleeve, “you have to lead this group. I’m going with Neema.”

“Hell no, darlin’.” His hand was curled around my bicep. He did not let go even as I tried to pull free.

“We have to. They need us. But we can’t do this side-by-side. Not yet. You lead them. I’ll lead the others.” I had not taken orders from Errol Dennison during the attack on Wrightwick. I would not take orders from Brent, either. We could work as a team, one that needed to split up because between us, we were the only two with true experience in Lethe.

“I don’t want to leave your side,” he whispered after pulling me close enough to kiss me.

I understood his fear. I felt it, too. Losing Brent in Lethe after all we had been through would crush my world. But I remembered someone who had told me that rebellions aren’t about the individuals but the greater purpose. Right now, it was not about us. I couldn’t be. Not yet.

“We can do this. I know we can,” I said because I had to keep saying it, over and over until my entire being embraced those words.

Brent’s blue eyes turned red in a flash of Eidolon power that, unfortunately for him, wouldn’t sway me this time. But as his hand unraveled from my arm, I realized he wasn’t trying to change my mind. He was in agreement. The red in his eyes told me he didn’t like it.

The flickering sconce lights extinguished for good. I lost my connection—both visual and physical—with Brent. Suddenly, the space around me felt vast and endless. We were more or less in a cave. Without light, there was no way of knowing which direction to go.

Screams filled the darkness. Stygians cried to fall back or to leave.

“Cell phones!” shouted someone.

Yes. I dug into my pocket for mine, hoping that I had enough battery charge to get us to the Heart of Lethe.

“Hurry!” some urged. “I’m scared!” others said.

“Dormier!” Neema shouted from down the hall. “What now?”

“Hold on!” I replied as I pawed nervously at my pocket.

In the darkness, touch was the only way to find my bearings. My hearing intensified, listening to every grunt, groan, complaint, squeal, or breath of my allies. I recognized some sounds and whom they belonged to. Papa and Brent made distinct noises. Others were foreign.

“Found mine,” I cried out just as put my hand on the rectangular device. I ripped it from my jeans pocket and fumbled to find the button to bring it life. One push and a little area around me illuminated like it was under a floodlight. I couldn’t see much more than shadows of the Stygians nearby. I spotted Papa’s white T-shirt and Brent’s blue flannel. I noticed the wallpaper and floral carpeting.

Then I noticed something else that hadn’t been in front of me before.

Ignoring the need to appear composed like a leader should be, I screamed.