17 months ago
“She’s what?” Abe nearly shouted down the phone.
A pause. Then, Amber’s sigh. “She escaped last night. The cameras caught her opening a kind of portal and bam, nothing. Sniffers are out combing the streets but there’s no trace of her.” Another pause and he saw Amber trying to compose her next question carefully. “Did you know?”
“No…I didn’t know she could do that but hell, she’s a hellhound. We’ve never really known what their full abilities are. Chances are she just figured it out and left for a bit. She’ll come back.”
Amber sighed. “I know that but, Abe, if the others find her before you or me? Look, we can calm the council down. After all, we have warned them about locking her up. That she wouldn’t be contained forever. If the Sniffers or the agents find her?”
“They’ll kill her.”
“No, worse, they’ll try and fail and she’ll kill them. Only, I don’t think she’ll be able to stop,” said Amber softly. “Anyway, I have to go. I’m meeting my girlfriend, Lana. She’s an Oracle, so she may be able to get a beat on your partner. For now, see if you can use that bond somehow.”
She hung up after that, leaving him staring at the phone; then, when he put that away, at the mirror, his strange reflection staring back. When he looked down, he saw his hand shaking and pressed it against the bench, sucking in a deep breath. He hadn’t felt this edgy in years. Was this what being bound to someone felt like again? He felt like he was dancing the knife’s edge, like he had with her, and he remembered very well how that played out. The price he paid. The price she paid willingly.
Amber was right, though. It had to one of them to find Fay. That way, she’d be safe.
Yeah, safe. Trying to hold onto Fay was like trying to stop a hurricane with words, he thought, stalking into his bedroom. No, Fay is the storm, a bloody apocalyptic one!
He grabbed the keys of his car and went out. As he got in the car he wondered where to check, where she might go. Where would a girl who’d been cooped up for months go? A girl like Fay? He kept trying to pull on the bond that bound them. Only, there was a dullness there; the bond was there but smothered by something cold. He shivered involuntarily as he drew back and started the car.
Amber parted the curtains to Lana’s living room, inhaling the burning incense and floral-scented cushions. It was dizzying and a hazy smoke swirled about the yellow-tinted chandelier that hung gaudily above. She sat on the plush armchair and Lana swept in, carrying a tray with a pot of tea, two cups and a little plate of cookies. With her long, slender arms, she lowered the tray down with an air of effortless grace. Her silvery eyes lifted up from the tray, found Amber, softened with worry.
“You sounded panicked on the phone – what is it?” She asked, pouring the tea.
“The hellhound – she’s missing. I’d hoped you could help,” said Amber, taking the tea cup and took a tentative sip. “Can you?”
Lana lifted one of her hands to her mouth, her wrist jangling with several bangles. When her hand fell away, she nodded slowly.
“I can try but hounds are tricky. I can find her if she’s on earth but if she’s in the Underworld I won’t see anything, present or future,” said Lana.
Amber nodded. Her field was death and demons, so she knew of the Underworld. Problem was, all she was able to do was banish a demon out of someone, a house, a place. She never destroyed, only relocated. She shifted the problem elsewhere, to a silly little item she might hide somewhere, knowing that someday, it’d be found and the cycle would repeat. It plagued her, that knowledge, like Lana’s sight of the future. It had destroyed relationships. It nearly destroyed theirs.
Lana closed her eyes and set her hands together, humming softly. It was enchanting to watch an Oracle world. They had a soft glow about their skin, as if something had been lit within them, and they hummed with magic. It was intoxicating. No, she was intoxicating; all exotic beauty, a combination from a Japanese father and a Swedish mother. Amber’s fingers itched to run through Lana’s long, silky hair that lay loose down her back.
After only a few minutes Lana opened her eyes, her thin manicured brow furrowing. “Underworld.”
“Hey, it’s okay.”
Lana’s frown softened and she looked up. “Is it? I know we’re new at this, at us but I wanted this first time to be useful. I know I don’t have to prove myself to you, to the world but…I like helping. I’m sorry.”
Amber moved, sat down beside Lana and took her hand, leaning close. “I don’t care. You tried and that’s all I could ask. You know what? We need to spend more time together. How about movie night in two days? You, me, a bunch of old movies and that Indian takeout you love?”
Lana grabbed her suddenly, kissing her soundly on the mouth and when she pulled back, both of them dizzy, she smiled. It stole the breath out of Amber.
“I love so you so much. I hope you know that,” said Lana, breathlessly.
Amber smiled, too giddy to think.
Abe drove around for hours before he finally got a text message, an address and a simple text: I’m okay. It was Fay. He punched in the address to the car, then he was off, speeding through the city. Eventually, he pulled up beside a sprawling cemetery and parked the car there. When he looked within at the bond he found Fay’s presence at the other end, steady, like a heartbeat.
He followed the thread through the park, past rows upon rows of headstones and tombs, of little stone markers and, sometimes, just a little statue. Every so often a plot was marked by a rectangle of fresh earth, a fresh grave. Some of the graves, new and old, had flowers. He felt a pang of pity for the new ones with nothing at all, wondering briefly if no one had cared they were gone. That made him think of her, realising that he was the only one to remember her anymore, on Earth anyway. He’d grieved when he found out she died, howled at the stars, cursing Zeus.
Continuing to follow the thread he eventually found Fay. He froze because the second he saw her, all sprawled out flat on her back, staring at the stars, he thought – stupidly – for a split second that she was dead. He tugged on the bond to assure himself and she sat up, looking at him, warily, as if he was about to lash out.
“I had to get out, even for a little bit. It was only for a few minutes – well, it felt like that. It’s been a few hours – or days?” She asked softly.
He released the breath he realised he’d been holding and sat down beside her. “Seven hours. The council sent agents out pretty fast, though. Got everyone really worried.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “That I’d go crazy?”
“Something like that,” he said. “So, where did you go?”
“The Underworld.”
The air rushed out of his lungs. “You-“
“Yep. I just kept thinking I wanted to go somewhere…and there I was. I just sat in this field for a little bit, then went for a walk. I found the gates of the palace there and he was there. Thanatos.”
The mention of the old god, the one he’d defied when he bonded to Fay, sent chills down his spine. It’d been a long time since he had anything to do with them…and the one before had resurrected him, made him immortal, just out of spite to her. He looked at Fay, saw her nerves frayed but she seemed resolved, hardened by the experience if anything.
“He’s determined to get my soul but he can’t do anything.” She smiled again and the fear he felt bled away. “I told him to piss off, that I’d never yield. Guess what he did then?”
He laughed dryly. “Do I want to know?”
She nudged his shoulder and laughed teasingly. “He left and I said ‘see you in hell again!’. He actually slammed the gates behind him.”
She was pulling away from him again and lay back down. He did the same, not before he sent a quick text to Amber, letting her know to call off the wolves. Everything was okay. Down beside Fay he stared up at the afternoon sky, a cloudy pale blue, softened by the approaching sunset. It had been a long time since he’d just lay back and really looked.
“If you want to go back there, even for a trip, let me know next time? That way the council and the agency doesn’t go into a meltdown,” he said softly.
“Fine but I want more time out…and…”
“And?” He prompted.
She sat up again, looking down at him seriously. “Rather than banish the souls away I think I could take them back to the Underworld. There, they can rest – whether for good or bad.”
“Isn’t that leaving them to burn there?”
She shook her head. “Yes and no. They’d be judged and what happened after would be their fault, not ours. It’s better than letting them fester up here.”
“We’ll try it. The agency has just gotten reports of a series of possessed children in an orphanage. Amber is going but we’ve been asked to go along. We can test your theory once Amber has expelled them,” he said.
The more of a positive step she took with her job and her new world, the better for everyone. So long as he helped cultivate that interest, then there might be hope for a long and productive career, given both of them were now immortal. Though, he had heard she might age physically another couple of years before she stopped completely. Where had he heard that again? A vamp, maybe, when Fay first came and everyone was talking about her. For Fay, he hoped it was true.
“You mean it?” She watched him closely, searching for any deception.
He sat up, looked her square in the eyes. “Yes.”
With that, she smiled, and it looked too much like her smile.
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