Face of Death

Chapter 1

I was in Hell. Literally. I choked, coughing up blood, as Victoria, the former head of the Ophi school and my boyfriend’s mom—at least, I thought Alex was my boyfriend again—made me relive the deaths of every human I’d killed. Even though I was immune to the poison in my own Gorgon blood, I felt it suffocating me. It wasn’t real. It wouldn’t kill me, but it hurt like hell. I could say that for certain, since I was now living in Hell.

My lungs screamed for air, and my body collapsed on the ground. Hades had enchanted the black abyss of Tartarus to look like whatever it was that would torture us most. We all saw it differently. For me, it looked like my house. The one I’d grown up in. The one I’d been forced to leave when Alex came for me and told me I was part of a branch of necromancers born under the thirteenth sign of the zodiac, Ophiuchus. The one where I’d killed my human boyfriend, Matt, and my own mother, all because my blood was poisonous to humans.

“Aw, what’s the matter, Jodi?” Victoria walked in circles around me. “I’m sure the most powerful Ophi in the world, the Chosen One, can handle a little pain.”

A little pain, yes. This was excruciating. Hades had wanted us to suffer, me most of all, and he was getting his wish. I didn’t want Victoria to see how much she was hurting me, how much I was screaming for the quiet of death, but I was powerless against the agony she inflicted. She was loving every second of it.

“Too tortured to talk?” She laughed and bent down to me. The pain was subsiding—for now. Once each death I relived was over, I had only moments before the next was inflicted upon me. Victoria grabbed my face, squeezing my cheeks and digging her nails into my skin. “You should’ve joined me when you had the chance.” She jerked my head to the right, where Alex writhed in pain on the ground as Troy looked on and smiled. “You did this, Jodi. You caused all of this. How does it feel?”

Before I could answer or think too much about the pain I’d caused everyone when I attempted to take on Hades, Victoria waved her hand over me and a searing pain shot through my hand. It crept up my arm and to my chest. I was reliving the death of Dr. Alvarez when he’d changed the bandage on my finger. I’d bled on him and poisoned his blood. The paramedics thought he’d died of a heart attack, but really, he’d died because he tried to help me.

The agony continued for hours. One death relived after another. Finally, Hades appeared in his usual cloud of swirling black smoke. “Enough!” He motioned for our tormentors to back off.

Victoria and her group of Ophi, whom I’d sentenced to serve Hades for all eternity, stepped away from me and my friends. No matter how much they enjoyed causing us pain, they weren’t stupid enough to disobey Hades.

Hades walked over to me, gazing down at my limp body. “Was it worth it, Jodi Marshall? Challenging me? Trying to prove you could take on a god?”

My throat still burned with the effects of the poisoned blood my last victim’s death had made me relive. Not that I had an answer for him anyway. Back in the cemetery, I’d done the only thing I thought I could. I tried to raise the souls Hades had taken from us. I tried to rip them out of Tartarus to show Hades we were too powerful to mess with. But Chase had had other plans I hadn’t been aware of. He’d made his own deal with Hades to free his mother’s soul. He’d been determined to use me to kill all the Ophi, which was what Hades had wanted. The end of the Ophi line. We would stop causing problems for him, and with all our souls under his control, he’d be able to absorb our powers. Only I’d figured out Chase’s plan before it was too late, and Medusa had helped me save my friends…had resurrected them before Hades had claimed their souls for good.

A lot of good that had done me. Hades had been furious, and he had taken us all here. We were worse than dead.

“No comment?” Hades smirked. “Maybe I should ask Leticia.” He walked over to Leticia, who was cowering on the ground beneath her parents. They were Ophi zombies, thanks to Victoria’s botched attempt to raise them. I was the only one who could raise Ophi—another reason why I was on top of Hades’ hit list.

“Leave her alone.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “We can’t stop you from torturing us, but we don’t have to talk to you.” Lamest comeback ever.

Hades laughed. “Suit yourself.” He nodded at Leticia’s parents, and they picked right up with her punishment. She shook uncontrollably and cried out in pain, screaming louder than I’d thought possible.

“Stop!” I struggled to be heard over Leticia’s cries. “Please! I’ll do what you want; just please stop hurting her.”

Hades held up a hand, and Leticia’s body went limp. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Alex immediately reached for her, but Hades blocked his path. “No touching.”

Alex’s hands clenched, and I rushed over to him. To hell with no touching. I couldn’t let him do something stupid like pick a fight with a god. Sure, we were in the underworld already, but we weren’t dead. As unimaginable as it was, I knew Hades could make things even worse.

Hades cocked his head to the side and stared at my hand in Alex’s. “That’s the smartest move you’ve made, Jodi Marshall. I would’ve squashed him like a bug.”

I squeezed Alex’s hand in mine so hard he turned away from Hades and looked at me. I silently pleaded with my eyes. He had to calm down. He had to give me time to come up with some plan to get us out of here. If he did something stupid, and Hades killed him, I knew I wouldn’t be able to raise him again. Hades would torture me until Alex’s soul had left his body—and since we were already in the underworld, Hades could claim it for himself. Raising Ophi was much harder than raising humans. So far, I hadn’t been able to raise an Ophi whose soul had already left their body.

I shook the thought from my head. I couldn’t let any negativity in. This place would eat me alive if I did. I had to keep my mind clear so I could talk to Tony and find out if there was any way out of here.

Alex finally returned my squeeze. Time was strange in Tartarus. It seemed to stand still. There were moments when it felt like an eternity had passed, like now. I wondered if it was all really happening in a matter of seconds and my mind was playing tricks on me. Hades smiled as if he was reading my thoughts.

“Can’t figure it out, can you?” He walked around my group. They were still on the ground, recovering from the torture they’d been subjected to since we’d arrived. I wondered how Alex was still standing. I had Medusa’s blood in my veins. That made me different, stronger. Alex should’ve been like the others. He should’ve been unable to move. Maybe years of living with Victoria and Troy had hardened him in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

My eyes fell on Chase as Hades stopped in front of him. “Such a disappointment. All that power I gave you, and you let it go to waste.”

“Power you gave him?” This time Alex squeezed my hand to keep me from doing something stupid.

Hades laughed and grabbed Chase by his hair, yanking his head up so I could see his face. I didn’t even want to look at him. He’d made me kill all the Ophi at the school. If I hadn’t been the Chosen One, they’d all still be dead. Alex would be dead. I’d never forgive Chase for making me use my powers for evil. For the way he controlled me with his touch. For the way he’d almost made me lose Alex for good.

“You didn’t really think he could have such an effect on you without a little help from me, did you?” Hades let go of Chase and walked toward me. “Chase did have something special, though.”

“What was that?” I needed to know the true story—what had really happened.

“Jealousy.”

“Everyone gets jealous.” My voice was small as I thought of how jealous Alex had been of Chase. Even after I’d convinced Alex I didn’t want to be with Chase, when he saw how Chase’s power could make me feel…euphoric…Alex couldn’t handle it.

“True.” Hades stepped inches from my face, and it took all my strength not to back away. The heat radiating from his body was intense. “Chase, however, was jealous of you. Your power. He wanted to be the Chosen One. The funny thing is I probably didn’t even need to take his mother. He probably would’ve gone along with my plan just to get rid of you.”

My eyes found Chase, but he turned away from me. It was true. He hated me. Maybe it had been jealousy that started it, but he’d enjoyed controlling me, poisoning me with his blood. He was almost as sick and twisted as Hades himself.

I took a step around Hades, afraid he’d stop me, but he simply smiled and moved out of my way. I let go of Alex, and Hades held up a hand to stop him from following me. I shot Alex a pleading look before walking over to Chase. “You never cared about me. You just wanted my power. All that stuff about choosing you—it wasn’t because you liked me.”

“I liked making out with you.” Chase laughed, which caused him to choke. He was still weak.

“What about those rare moments when you were nice to me, almost human?”

“There’s nothing human about him,” Hades said. “Or any of you, for that matter.”

That wasn’t entirely true. I’d been half-human until I drank Medusa’s blood and killed my human side. I lingered on that thought. My human half. Where was the part of my soul that was human? If I didn’t die, and Hades resented me for not giving him my human soul when I drank Medusa’s blood, then where was it?

My eyes flew to Tony. I had to talk to him. He was the most knowledgeable Ophi here. If anyone could give me answers, it was him. Except, how could I get him alone? I was sure Hades would let Victoria and the others continue with our punishment the moment he got bored with us.

I faced Hades, set on keeping him talking as long as possible. Leticia and McKenzie, the two youngest Ophi, looked like they couldn’t survive any more pain. “So, this is it? This is your plan for us? Keep us here for all eternity? It doesn’t make sense. We’re still alive. You don’t have our souls.”

Hades’ eyes burned into me. Literally burned with hellfire. I fell to my knees, and Alex reached for me, wrapping his arms around me and blocking me from Hades’ view. The fire subsided as soon as Alex broke the connection.

He held my face in his hands. “Jodi? Are you okay?”

I nodded, but I wasn’t okay. None of us were.

“There’s something to be said for the living,” Hades said. Alex and I turned to face him. “I can hurt you so much more than the dead. I have both your souls and your bodies to punish.”

This was all about payback. He hated us because we had taken souls from him. Now, he was going to make sure we paid for it.

“Well, then.” He clapped his hands in front of him, and Victoria and her group advanced on us. Leticia whimpered. McKenzie sobbed. Lexi cowered as her own sister, Abby, moved toward her. The others managed to hold their ground, along with Alex and me. Then, Hades surprised us all. “Shall we get going?”

“Go where?” All I could imagine was a deeper level of Tartarus—someplace darker, hotter, and more painful, if that were possible.

“You’ll be moving to the Fields of Asphodel.” If his expression wasn’t so stone cold serious, I would’ve sworn he was trying to trick us—lull us into a false sense of security before unleashing some new form of torture ten times worse than the last.

“But why?” Not that I wasn’t relieved to get a break from Tartarus, but something was up, and I didn’t like not knowing what.

“Your former friends have been doing a commendable job doling out your punishments.” He nodded briefly at his new servants. This wasn’t at all what I’d intended. Victoria and the others were supposed to be suffering down here in the underworld, not living it up torturing souls. “However,” Hades continued, “this kind of torture all the time would kill you, and I’m not ready for you all to die. Yet.”

I should’ve known. He was dragging this out. Keeping us alive for as long as possible, maybe forever. I had to find a way out of here. Hades motioned for us to follow him, and just like when we’d arrived in the underworld, it was like our bodies had minds of their own—or more like they obeyed Hades—because we were following him. Of course, we were all happy to get out of Tartarus, even if it was only for a little while.

Arianna, who had become like a second mom to me—although biologically she was Lexi and Abby’s mom—fell in step with me. “We’ll figure something out,” she whispered.

I nodded and turned to Tony, who was on the other side of Arianna. “We need to talk. I think I have an idea, but I’m going to need your help.”

He gave me a weak smile, and I couldn’t help thinking he doubted any plan I’d come up with would work. I was never really one for paying attention in class, especially when it came to mythology. I had this thing against Zeus. After finding out that it was Zeus who put Ophiuchus in the heavens to stop him from taking souls from the underworld, well, let’s just say he’ll never get a Christmas card from me. But Zeus aside, I did remember that only a few people have ever made it out of the underworld alive.

That was the beauty of my plan. I wasn’t going to try to get out of the underworld alive. I was going to try to raise my own soul. My human soul. The one I’d killed. I was going to force that soul into the body of another dead person.

I was going to become one of the living dead—and hopefully not the zombie kind.