Pitchfork Page 11

  Hades hoisted the pitchfork and strode over the threshold of the temple. Malevolent purpose drove her steps. The temple’s eerie silence hung in the air as a warning that not all was well within these walls, but Hades slipped through the darkness, ignoring the uncanny quiet. Not a single flame lit the halls, leaving the temple in bitter blackness, but Hades’ feet knew the way, her shadowed eye seeing the unseen. Her mind was of a singular task, and she would not be stopped.

  Thwack! Hades head whiplashed, her face exploding in pain as she stumbled. The sound of a slithering mass’ flee echoed in her ringing ears, but before she regained her balance, the air swished around through the room. Her legs were knocked from beneath her, and Hades slammed to the ground with a thud. Her skull’s impact spider-webbed the tile, and an involuntary roar sliced through her lips as an excruciating knife of torture carved into her brain. Fueled by anger and a red haze of blinding agony, Hades flung herself backward, using the momentum of the fall to roll over her shoulder and back to her feet. So, the monster was here to stop her? Hades grinned wickedly and cast her eyes down. Let it try. She would paint the walls with its blood.

  Hades bolted into a run, heels slapping her anger on the floor. It mattered not that the beast could hear her movement. She wanted it to. It would draw the Gorgon out, and Hades would accept the creature’s violent death as an offering of blood and torment.

  Hades noticed the whisper of air to her right a moment before Medusa hurled herself through a side-branching hallway. Hades slid to a halt almost too late, but almost was all the warning she needed to slow as Medusa careened before her, barely missing the raven-haired beauty. Twisting the pitchfork, Hades speared the scaled tail and vaulted over the mass, disappearing into the darkness. Medusa let out a blood-curdling scream as she was left behind in the emptiness. The Gorgon would have to try harder than that.

  The beast faded into the labyrinth, but the gooseflesh marring Hades’ skin spurred her forward, the hair at the base of her neck a sign of her body’s exhilaration at being hunted. Hades burst into an open room of echoing vastness, but this time the whisper of air hit her ears too late, and Medusa’s torso slammed into hers. The women plummeted to the floor, and Hades clenched her eyelids as her body clashed with the stone. In her blindness, the queen of death lashed out, but Medusa wasted no time in her assault. In a heartbeat, her massive tail curled around Hades. The tighter it constricted, the more air it forced from her crushed lungs, and Hades gasped for breath, desperate to cool the burning in her chest. Her ribs strained beneath the suffocating pressure. If she did not free herself, her ribcage would crack like a walnut’s shell under the force. With a growl from deep within her soul, Hades summoned the tentacles of smoke and heaved. Medusa’s tail floundered like a dead fish and slapped the ground with a heavy thud. Air flooded Hades’ lungs with searing relief, and she choked, the soreness on her flesh already threatening to turn purple. She could not allow the beast to confine her again, and seizing the fallen pitchfork, Hades hurled. The prongs flew true, and the clang of the metal heralded them hitting their mark. Medusa screamed in the darkness, her serpentine form writhing over the tiles. Eyes glazed dark, Hades extended a palm, and the pitchfork ripped itself from Medusa’s flesh and returned to her hand. The Gorgon’s heaving breaths rushed franticly from her lips, and Hades could tell by the panting that she had struck the serpent well.

  Eyes still downcast, Hades strode forward until the tail thickened to a torso at her feet. Thick crimson coated the floor as it dripped down the monster’s scale. Sensing where Medusa’s body hovered, Hades lifted her fist and slammed it down. It exploded with a sickening crunch against Medusa’s nose. Hades smiled with wicked pleasure at the sound of the bones giving way beneath her hand, and using the pitchfork to pin the beast, she coiled for another savage blow. Medusa cried out as her jaw cracked under Hades’ knuckles, but the queen refused to relent and raised her fist again. With a final weak effort, Medusa flung her hair as Hades’ hand broke across her face. The myriad of slender snakes latched onto their attacker’s wrist and bit down with burning fury. Hades yanked her arm back with soundless force and glimpsed down at the countless welts puckering red on her skin. The pain was excruciating as the blood began to flow down her mottled forearm, but Hades only stared at it as if it was not her own limb but that of a stranger. She paused for a moment to watch the deep crimson run from her veins and drip to the floor before she hoisted the pitchfork into the air and whipped it across Medusa’s face. With a thud, the Gorgon’s mass plummeted to the ground. Through downcast lids, Hades studied the massive bloody body, but the Gorgon failed to move. This monster was no match for the queen of the Underworld. Hades was the true monster, and stepping over the Gorgon, she disappeared into the darkness of the temple.

  Feet pulling her forward, body unable to fight the drawing force, Hades came to the door. Sealed. Solid. Hades settled before it, frozen in silence. Outwardly she was a stoic figure with eyes of cold resolve, but somewhere deep inside, she was fighting. Her stillness before the gate was the only challenge Hades could manage, but the part of her that struggled was pushed deep within her soul. It was too little too late, and with a shove, the darkness snuffed it out. Hades stepped forward and lifting a bloody palm, smeared red over the seal just as her ancestor before her had. The door lurched at her blood, and power surged at her fingertips like an explosion’s recoil before detonation. Hades opened her mouth to speak…

  “I cannot let you do that,” came a weak and garbled voice. Hades snapped her hand back and almost looked into Medusa’s eyes before she realized and cast them to the serpent’s torso. The monster’s stomach was bleeding from the pitchfork wound, and blood dripped down her throat as a result of Hades’ beating.

  “As long as I still draw breath, I cannot allow you to open that,” Medusa heaved as she slithered closer. For a weighted moment, the two women stood facing each other, and Medusa prayed the true Hades had woken from this stupor, that she had pushed the madness from her mind. But without warning, Hades raised her head, and Medusa shrieked. The queen locked her stare with the Gorgon’s, and Medusa saw Hades’ eyes were black. Not a single speck of white shone through. She did not turn to stone as she looked upon the Gorgon, and Medusa knew. This was her end. The Old Ones’ were feeding Hades power through the door, their evil brimming as a protective curtain over their salvation’s gaze. They had her blood. They were one now, and no matter how hard Medusa tried, the onyx eyes looking at her were not Hades’. Medusa could not curse her to an eternal statue.

  “Then I will take away your breath,” Hades spat, but it was not her voice. It was the voice of the horde speaking through her, and with that, Hades shot a hand out. Smoke erupted from her fingers and engulfed the serpent. The Gorgon struggled to free herself, but the blackness twisted and writhed around her until she was trapped. Hades smiled an evil grin and clenched her fist tight in mid-air. Instantly, the inky tentacles constricted Medusa’s body like a suffocating snake. The harder Hades squeezed, the more force choked her ribcage until Medusa cried a gasping panic, but the prison only drew tighter. Her vision blurred, and breathing shallowed. A crack reverberated off the walls as one of her ribs snapped like a twig beneath the pressure. Fire coursed through her lungs as they starved for air. Bruising pain rippled from her chest until all of her flesh screamed for mercy. Medusa gasped, trying to maintain consciousness, but it was no use. A ring of bruises choked a brutal necklace about her throat. She heaved, coughing blood as the view of the dark queen faded to black.

  “The first have come,” the voices spoke through Hades. “The first have come, and they seek the last.” And with those words, Medusa crumbled to the floor.

  Releasing the beast’s bruised body from the tentacles of power, Hades turned back to the door. She wiped her blood on the prongs of the pitchfork and then drove the metal into the seal. Through her mouth, the Old Ones uttered a language Hades did not know or understand, yet she thrust further. The seal began to splinter, slight
ly at first, but the cracks grew, and with an unearthly scream, Hades shoved the pitchfork with all of her unnatural strength. The cracking that shot through the stone was deafening, not a single inch of the earth remained still with its violent shattering. With a jarring burst of air, the seal shattered. Hades’ head snapped backward, caught in the escaping current. Her skull collided with the wall with a volley of blood, and she crumpled almost lifelessly next to Medusa, their bodies unmoving as the whole of the earth convulsed.

  XII

  “Alkaios!” Keres jolted upright in bed. Her eyes had barely opened before she was standing on earth, looking at the sky. Her feet touched the dirt only a second before Alkaios’ did, and his eyesight followed her gaze heavenward.

  “By the gods,” he exclaimed, taking a step backward and bumping into Hydra who had just appeared. Her hands reached out to catch him, but the heavens captured her attention, freezing Hydra in cold terror.

  “No!” Keres screamed, covering her mouth. “No, Alkaios do something!” She fell to her knees. Alkaios stood in shock as Keres dissolved into a panic on the ground, but he was too late. He could do nothing.

  “Alkaios,” Keres begged with a distraught tone, and Hydra moved forward to envelop her friend in her comforting arms. The sky had turned a violent color in the early morning light. The clouds burned like flowing red lava, and those circling on the outskirts were black with the ash of destruction. Beneath the eye of the storm, stood a distant mountain that had never been visible before. Medusa’s mountain. The barrier had been broken; that which had hidden the door since the beginning of their time gone.

  Alkaios’ body went numb, and nausea roiled in his belly. He had not felt Hades leave, but seeing the burning tempest consuming the sky, he knew. Hades had been right. He could not stop her. He had promised his wife salvation from the prophecy but had failed. The first finally found the last.

  “By all that is holy,” came a deep voice behind them, and all three heads whipped around. When Keres saw who stood there, she launched herself at him.

  “You are too late!” she screamed, slamming her fists against Hephaestus’ chest. “I told you to hurry, but you are too late...” she repeated over and over, a hysterical mantra. It took all of Hydra’s strength to rip Keres away from beating the smith to a mottled pulp.

  “What is happening?” the blacksmith asked, looking to Alkaios, but when the god of the Underworld did not answer, he continued, “Is this what you feared Hades would do?”

  “How do you know about this?” Alkaios asked in bewilderment.

  “I know little.” Hephaestus nodded at Keres. “But the spirit of violent death requested I build a cage to imprison your wife in the Underworld. Is this why?” he urged, gazing in horror at the burning clouds.

  “Yes,” Hydra’s panic laced voice answered when Alkaios failed to respond. “By the gods, yes, but it is too late now.”

  “What has she done?” Hephaestus asked, fear creeping through his body like burrowing worms, but before anyone answered, the air shimmered, and a battered woman appeared cradling Hades’ broken form.

  “Eyes down!” Hydra screamed, and the four of them slammed their eyelids shut.

  “It is all right!” Medusa groaned, straining under Hades’ weight. Alkaios opened his eyes first and lunged forward just in time to catch his wife as her crippled body fell from the Gorgon’s arms. Alkaios sunk to the ground cradling the woman he loved most, horrified by her shredded arm and hand, her broken nose, and bleeding skull. His questing eyes shifted to Medusa with pleading urgency, but seeing her dawned a terrible realization. Medusa had transformed back to her human form, the living snakes for hair the only hint at what she was. Alkaios’ sight roamed over her damaged face, bruised neck, and punctured stomach, and he understood.

  “I failed,” Medusa said as she collapsed in exhaustion and agony, her figure slick with both her own and Hades’ blood. “I tried to stop her, but she is too strong.” Her voice caught, and she fell silent, clutching her bleeding abdomen. The five of them sat in horror, gazing at the unconscious Hades. Her breath was shallow and labored, and Alkaios clung to her body, afraid to move. What should he do? What could he do?

  “A god comes,” Medusa whispered, breaking the silence, and before any of them could respond, she disappeared without a trace.

  “By the gods,” came Poseidon’s voice, and Alkaios shifted to see the two brothers gaping at the sky.

  “What happened?” Zeus demanded, his cold eyes staring down at Alkaios and his almost lifeless wife. “What have you done?”

  “Call the council,” Alkaios said softly, the demand in his statement not missed.

  “You do not…” Zeus began.

  “Call the council,” Alkaios commanded. His features hardened with rage and power as he challenged the king of the gods. “Now.”

  “You knew all this time what the prophecy meant, and yet you did not warn us?” Zeus asked, his expression full of icy malice. He was the first to break the silence after Alkaios’ words. “You knew and kept silent?” His voice was low and even, a far more terrifying sound than his screams. “You let this happen.”

  “Your solution would have been to kill her,” Alkaios said. His bones felt weary beneath his flesh as he stood at the center of the council chamber. His recount of the Old Ones and the door had left him heavy and defeated.

  “Of course I would kill her,” Zeus spat. “If sacrificing Hades guaranteed the safety of the world, I would have driven my bolt through her heart.”

  “You will not touch her!” Alkaios’ grip tightened on the pitchfork as he leaned forward, ready to strike if Zeus so much as looked at Hades.

  “Your weakness,” Zeus snarled as he slowly rose from his throne, “your unwillingness to sacrifice one person has killed us all.”

  “How can we be sure what he says is truth?” Hera blurted before the gods could come to blows. “That this is not a play for the throne, for your power, Zeus? Hades has been known to unleash darkness on earth for her own purposes. Is this any different? Gods before the Titans? Do you expect any of us to believe this?”

  “He speaks the truth,” Hades mumbled, speaking for the first time to cut off her husband whose mouth was parted in an almost response. All eyes turned to her as she sat slumped on the throne to Zeus’ left, and she settled uncomfortably under the oppressive gaze of the gods. She could barely keep her eyelids open or her body upright, and the crusted blood on her skin made her look as if death would claim her at any moment.

  “As if I would ever believe a word from your mouth…” Hera spat with venom only a jealous woman could muster, but before her sentence could finish, Hades shifted unnaturally in her seat. Gone was the pain and exhaustion as she pinned Hera with a dark gaze. The whole chamber froze, watching in horror as Hades’ eyes bore down on Hera’s rigid body. Power rippled off the queen of the Underworld’s skin and penetrated the air as she stared. The gods held their breath, afraid the savage inside Hades would strike. Those who had doubted moments before knew now that Alkaios’ horrifying tale was true. The energy had shifted, and all sensed it. Zeus was no longer the most powerful among them.

  “You do not have to take our word for it,” Hades said, breaking her hold over the room and returning to her hunched state. The entire chamber visibly relaxed, thankful she had chosen not to strike. “You can take hers.” Hades nodded toward the massive double doors.

  On cue, they swung open, creaking on their hinges, and Medusa strode through with as much dignity as her battered body allowed. Her snake hair hung loose and writhing over her shoulders. The council watched her warily, but it was Poseidon who first recognized the beast entering their holy midst.

  “Eyes down!” His command bounced off the circular walls. Heads shot down in unison, eyelids clenching shut, hands seizing weapons.

  “I come in peace,” Medusa said as she joined Alkaios in the center of the room. “I will turn no one to stone.”

  “Medusa’s power is a weapon, not a
curse,” Hades explained, “She can control it and means no harm.”

  “Do not believe her,” Hera ordered through clenched teeth. “She wants us to open our eyes to turn us all to statues. This is part of her plan to assassinate us, to take my husband’s throne.” Hera emphasized husband as a jab at the fallen queen, a reminder she had won, that she still held some power over the woman Zeus used to love.

  “She is not here to kill you,” Hades said with exasperation.

  “We do not know that!”

  “Open your eyes,” Hades commanded her voice suddenly cold and harsh. “Medusa is here to help.” She paused for a moment but when no one moved, continued, “Besides, Hera, if I wanted you dead do you really think I would need Medusa to do it for me? You… you, I could kill with my bare hands, and not a god in this room could stop me. Now open your eyes. She is not our enemy, and with the apocalypse at our threshold, we do not have time for foolishness.”

  The chamber fell silent, terrified after Hades’ menacing words, and then with halting movements, Poseidon lifted his gaze and turned his eyes upon the Gorgon. The gods held their breath as they watched from the corner of their eyes.

  “I cannot believe you are real,” Poseidon said, and the room audibly sighed when he remained flesh and blood.