Pitchfork Page 9

  “I was looking for you,” Hades said softly, leaning on the old stone for support, “but nausea overtook me.”

  “Are you all right?” Alkaios asked, concern clouding his eyes. He reached out and enveloped her smaller frame in his hulking one.

  “I do not know…” Hades murmured into his warm and comforting chest. “No. I feel ill and cannot fathom how to digest Medusa’s words. How can I be what she says I am? How do I live a life where my sanity slips day by day until I am no longer Hades of the Underworld, but Hades the Old One, daughter of insanity? I could single-handedly destroy the world by opening one door.”

  “I will not let that happen.” Alkaios kissed her soft hair, inhaling her sweet and familiar scent. “You gave all you had for my safety; I will do the same for you.”

  “And I love you for it,” she murmured, “but I fear eventually not even you will be able to stop me.”

  Alkaios opened his mouth, but before the syllables departed from his lips, Hades jerked backward, hurling herself from him, and heaved onto the ground. Alkaios stepped to her and held her hair with gentle concern. Aching helplessness sunk into his gut as he rubbed her back, but what else could he do?

  Back at the boathouse, Ioanna waited until Hydra and Keres had left and were long out of earshot before she whirled on her husband.

  “How are we supposed to cage her?” she demanded visibly shaken, her voice faltering between sorrow and anger. “We owe Hades our lives… our daughters’ lives, and yet we are to turn on her and treat her like a tortured soul destined never to leave Tartarus?”

  “Ioanna…”

  “She returned you to me,” she sobbed, clasping Charon’s face in her palms. “I had lost you, and Hades brought you back. We owe her our loyalty. She is our true god. I love Alkaios, but he is not Hades. She is still my king, and I cannot cage her like an animal.”

  “Ioanna,” Charon repeated, “it is because we love her that we have to do this. Hades will never forgive herself if she opens that door. Our god of death does not kill cruelly, and if her ancestors force her to, the last shred of the woman we care for will disappear. We are indebted to her for everything, and we owe it to her to keep her safe… even if it means caging her.”

  “I know you are right.” Ioanna curled herself against his chest, “but I feel if I play a part in imprisoning her, then I am ungratefully throwing her goodness back into her face.”

  Ioanna’s voice carried softly over what she thought was an empty River Styx, but her words fell heavy on a pair of ears. Keres hugged her knees as she hid on the dock, her small form concealed in the river’s mist. She leaned against the wall and listened to Ioanna and Charon’s conversation drift through the night, her heart sinking. She knew Charon was right. Hades could not break that seal, but she understood Ioanna’s heartbreak. How do you watch the person you love most descend into madness? How do you imprison pure and absolute power?

  Suddenly sure of what she had to do, Keres stood softly in the fog. She would do what had to be done. She would cage Hades so Ioanna would not have to. Keres was the first to lay eyes on Hades when she broke the seal to the Underworld, and she would be the person to chain her there.

  X

  “Spirit of violent death,” Hephaestus said, slamming his hammer down on a scalding piece of metal as sweat poured from his brow. “What is it I can do for you?”

  “I have come to ask for your help,” Keres said tentatively as she drifted into the forge. A maze of workshops and storage rooms, Hephaestus’ forge was almost impossible to find, but Keres had refused to give up the hunt until she was standing in the scalding room with the blacksmith of the gods.

  “What is it you require?” he asked without so much as a glance at his intruder.

  “It is a task of great difficulty,” Keres began, “and you will not like it.” At her words, Hephaestus’ hammer froze mid-air, and his gaze leveled at her as if he saw past her eyes into her soul. Keres swallowed with dread and shut her eyelids, letting the darkness blind her.

  “I need you to build a cage,” she finally said, opening her eyes to return his stare, “… for Hades.”

  “Which Hades? The man we now call god or the true Hades who broke the seal?”

  “My Queen.”

  “And what kind of cage do you require?” he said bitterly, voice full of scorn, “for the woman who gave you everything?”

  “You do not understand.” Keres rushed to him, fingers clutching his massive forearm. “You must do this for me. I cannot tell you why, but you have to trust me.”

  “You expect me to trust you when, without reason, you ask me to cage the Queen of the Underworld? Unless I hear from the King himself, I will do no such thing.”

  “Hephaestus, please,” Keres begged. “I cannot explain why; Hades would not want me to, but you know how I love her. I would not ask for a thing so vile if it were unnecessary. Please listen to me. Something is coming. Something we may not be able to stop. Hades cannot be allowed to leave the Underworld.”

  Hephaestus cocked his head inquisitively and opened his mouth.

  “I cannot explain,” Keres interrupted before he could speak. “No one can know… I have already said too much and should not even be here, but you must understand, I love Hades. I need her safe… I need you to do this for me. Please, build me a cage, a way to lock her in the Underworld before it is too late.”

  Hephaestus gazed down at Keres, realizing with a growing dread in the pit of his stomach that she spoke the truth. She begged with desperation, and he saw fear hovering thick in her eyes like a dark parasitic passenger. Whatever caused the spirit of violent death to feel terror was something he did not wish to meet face to face.

  “Very well,” Hephaestus sighed despite the sickening knot gripping his gut. “I will build you a cage to lock your beloved queen behind; one she will never escape, and the Underworld will truly become the prison Zeus, Poseidon, and Hera meant it to be. But I have one condition. I refuse to imprison Hades without the King’s consent. You have requested its building, but only Alkaios will convince me to unleash it. I refuse to be responsible for the King of death’s rage if I were to foolishly imprison his wife. It must be his decision and his alone.”

  “I understand,” Keres said. “But by the gods, hurry… before it is too late.”

  The mist rolled thick over the River Styx, obscuring the small boat slicing through the poison waters. It was the dead of night, but when a coin was tossed into Charon’s hands, he must heed the call. So, he plunged his pole through the dark water, ferrying the shade of an elderly man who had passed in his sleep. Survived by his wife and son, they knew the commands of Hades and had placed coins over his eyes, ensuring his safe passage to the afterlife.

  The boat slid against the shore with a soft bump, and Charon offered the passenger his hand. Most who crossed the dark river were too afraid to accept help from the ferryman, but the elderly shade simply smiled and accepted the support. Charon guided his fare to the safety of the riverbank where the judges waited to weigh his soul. Charon watched as they found the shade pure of heart, who with a peaceful smile, passed on to Elysium.

  With the shade’s departure, the judges vanished as swiftly as they had appeared, leaving Charon alone in the midnight silence. The ferryman speared the riverbed with his pole and pushed back into the water, eager to rejoin Ioanna in their bed, but just as the shore disappeared behind the gloom, a shadow caught his eye. Charon strained to glimpse the shifting shape through the wall of mist. Whispers of black fluttered in the wind, and instantly he knew who it was. Repositioning the rod, he shoved toward the sand. Her outline grew clearer as his boat sliced through the Styx until Charon could see the paleness of her skin against the grey fog.

  “Hades?” Charon called softly, but she did not move. Frozen on the shore, her toes buried beneath the murky water, Hades remained unaware she was being observed. Charon drifted closer and opened his mouth when he saw her eyes. Glazed over, they were open but unseeing. She
was oblivious to her surroundings, utterly blind to his presence.

  Gently, as not to startle her, Charon extended his palm toward her arm, but Hades snapped her head, drilling him with a haunting and unseeing gaze. He grunted in surprise, and his stomach dropped at the lack of recognition painted on her face. Instead, her cold, glassy eyes bore straight into his soul with terrifying ferocity. But before he could recover his surprise, the tentacles of inky black smoke smothered her, and Hades was gone.

  “Alkaios,” Charon called into the stillness, and the words were barely uttered before his friend materialized in a dissipating cloud of dark smoke. Sleep lingered in Alkaios’ eyes, and his hair spiked where the pillow had crushed it.

  “Hades left,” Charon said by way of greeting. “I do not think she was awake.” Alkaios sighed and ran a hand over his mouth as his mind’s eye followed her trail.

  “I found her,” he said after a moment’s silence. “Thank you.” Alkaios clapped Charon on the shoulder before he disappeared just as his wife had a moment before.

  On earth, the sun still hid, allowing the moon to reign supreme. Alkaios surveyed the ground in the pale light. Despite the years, his farm looked no different than it had when he was mortal. Hades had preserved the land he had once hated until a woman named Persephone stumbled into his life. Alkaios walked through the crops, observing how everything grew and bore great fruit regardless of the nearly barren soil untended by hands to strangle life from the dirt. Its consecrated fields had become a destination of fruitfulness to anyone in need, and all who braved a pilgrimage to Alkaios’ farm were blessed with abundance. It was not a widespread truth, but those who prayed desperately in the night only to have their needs ignored by the gods would wake to find their feet drawn along a path that ended in this eternally growing bounty.

  Alkaios walked through the peace toward his old home and smiled at the sight of recently harvested grain. New shoots pushed up through the dirt trying frantically to overtake and replace the shorn stalks. Someone had been here and had reaped the benefits of the ever-growing harvest, and as Alkaios caught sight of Hades sitting on the bench that stretched before the weather-beaten house with her head rested against the wall, lids blanketing her eyes, he was thankful that someone in need had been blessed by his wife’s foresight.

  “I am not sure how I got here,” she said, feeling her husband’s presence press against her skin. “I was trapped in blood and pain, and when I awoke, I was here. I must have been searching for peace.” Alkaios crossed the distance between them and sat, leaning his head on the wall beside hers. He shifted to study her moonlit face, watching her lashes flicker open.

  “Do you miss living here?” Hades asked. “A simple and peaceful life under the sun and moon, no darkness, no death?”

  “You, my love, have a different memory of this place than I do. Your presence brought a blessing to this land, but before you, only heartache and exhaustion comforted me at night. I choose to forever live in darkness because you are my light.”

  “I miss it,” Hades said. A soft smile played on her lips at his words. “We had our obstacles then, but compared to now…” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “This farm is simple… peaceful… and I miss the goat.”

  “The goat?” Alkaios murmured with a laugh. “He bit everything and made caring for him difficult. How can you miss him? Or more importantly, how could you subject the good and pure souls of Elysium to his misbehavior? They earned the reward of the afterlife, yet you plagued them with him.”

  “They love him,” Hades said, slapping her husband playfully in the stomach.

  “No, you love him.” Alkaios trapped her fingers against his abdomen, and the pressure in Hades’ chest eased slightly at the sound of his chuckle. She adored the way his deep voice rumbled when he laughed. It sounded as if all his joy stemmed from her, and Hades could not imagine having ever loved anyone but Alkaios.

  “He was yours,” Hades explained. “I could not let any animal of yours be cast aside and forgotten after you left this farm. I had to grant them eternal life as thanks for their service to the new god of the Underworld. Besides, I enjoy visiting him. He is so small and soft to hold. Nothing like the spiked bed hog that insists on sleeping next to me every night.” She smiled, referring to Kerberos, which despite her joking words, Alkaios knew to be her true favorite.

  “You are a better god than I,” Alkaios said, voice drifting off into the quiet midnight. A comfortable stillness settled between them, and Alkaios clutched her hand. His rough thumb smoothed the soft skin of her knuckles as if he was trying to memorize every crease and fold of her beloved skin. After long moments, Hades gripped his fingers and drew his palm to her lips. She pressed a reverent kiss to his palm, and an overwhelming heat flushed his skin at the gentle caress her lips painted across his flesh.

  “How long was I gone before you noticed?” Hades asked, breaking the silence.

  “Moments. Charon saw you leave.”

  “At least I came here.”

  “Hades.” Alkaios captured her free hand in his and pulled until her back parted from the wall and her torso twisted toward him. “You will not go there. You will not open the door. I know it.”

  “You do not.” Desperation peppered her eyes. “It is in my blood - who I am. I was prophesied to break that seal, and I am afraid it is only a matter of time before I truly become the god of death.”

  “I will not let that happen.”

  “I left the Underworld tonight without you realizing,” Hades argued, voice heavy. “What happens next time when Charon is not there to witness my departure? What if none of the others see me leave? How far do I get before you even know to come after me?”

  “I will not give up.” Alkaios brought both of her hands to his lips, kissing one palm and then the next just as she had done. His mouth lingered against her skin with each kiss as if his determination could seep into her hands by his love alone. “I will stand by you no matter what, and I will not let you near that door. We have seen worse and survived… this will be no different.”

  “That is just it,” Hades interrupted, bolting to her feet so fast her hands ripped from his grip. “We have not faced worse. If Medusa is right, and I know she is because I can feel them inside of me, then Zeus’ anger and the price I paid to save you are child’s play compared to the Old Ones. Their power is absolute, and they have carved their moral compass from their hearts with their genocide. If they rise, even the three greats of the Olympians may not be able to stop them, and I will no longer be myself. Consumed by their madness, I will be gone.”

  “I do not care what some dying, crazed god prophesied over you,” Alkaios said as he leapt to his feet. His body towered over Hades as his harsh eyes bore into her soul. “You are not like them. Look at my farm. You have turned it into the answer for those who seek help, for those who starve. You return children to their parents. You gave Ioanna and Charon a second chance full of love and daughters. That god prophesied about someone completely different from you. You say if that door opens and earth is destroyed, then you will truly be the god of death, but Hades, you already are. Just not in the way you think. You care for the dead and made the river safe to cross so that all who pass may receive fair judgment. You even granted that goat a happiness I would never have thought to give him. You were destined to wake the first gods, that I am sure of, but when they spoke about the last all those centuries ago, they were not expecting… you. If anyone can take the darkness and make it home, it is you. They were not expecting the woman you are, and because of that, I know no matter what, you will never be the monster they prophesied to come.”

  “I hope you are right,” Hades sighed, collapsing against his chest. “I cannot be responsible for destroying the world.” Alkaios wrapped his arms around her shoulders and planted a kiss on the top of her head, burying his nose in her raven hair.

  Hades woke to the sunshine, her sleep free of nightmares. Maybe Alkaios was right. Perhaps she was the person he believ
ed her to be, and their love would tether her soul to her own mind and not the minds of those who had once seen fit to kill their own family.

  Alkaios still lay asleep on the bed beside her. They had slept on earth, their bodies intertwined as the fresh air bathed their skin. Hades pressed her lips to Alkaios’ temple and wormed out from beneath his heavy arm. She wandered to the creek in the early sun, soaking in the foreign warmth and washed her face with the clear water. Drinking her fill, Hades sat back against a rock and slipped her feet into the bright current so different from her own malicious waters. The stream cooled her skin as the sunlight beat down on her dark hair.

  Hunger nagged at her stomach, and despite the bounty of the crops behind her, Hades unfurled a fist. In a swirl of inky smoke, a pomegranate appeared in her palm, and she ripped it open, red juice bleeding down her wrist as the vibrant seeds were plucked from its cream flesh. Hades ate in peace, mind falling empty as she enjoyed the sunshine her realm so desperately missed.

  Back inside the house, Alkaios woke with a start, an internal warning electrifying his body. He rolled over and found the cause for the jarring awakening. Hades’ side of the bed was absent her form, and as Alkaios bolted from the mattress, his fingers caressed the indent her body had left. The sheets still retained her warmth, and relief eased Alkaios’ chest knowing she was not long gone.

  Seizing the pitchfork from its resting place, Alkaios burst into the new day’s light and blinked rapidly at the rays stinging his eyes. He had dwelled in darkness for so long with the woman he loved that he had almost forgotten how blinding an unobstructed sunrise was. Eventually his pupils adjusted, and Alkaios scanned the crops for any sign of Hades. The search was complete in an instant as his gaze landed on a gloriously dark stain at the creek bed. Hades sat alone in the morning bliss eating a pomegranate, dress hiked high up on her thighs. Her flawless skin soaked up the warm rays, and despite the scar on her arm where Charon had to stitch the flesh wounded in one of Athena’s attacks during Hades’ rise to power, Hades appeared a portrait of perfection.