Face of Death

Chapter 20

I couldn’t breathe as I stared at Amber’s innocent face. First Matt, and now Amber. Hades was avoiding me, not confronting me about what I’d done. He was making me suffer, forcing me to return to save the people I cared about.

Amber cocked her head to the side and stared into my eyes. “Jodi? Can you hear me now? You were so spacey before. I tried to talk to you, but you didn’t answer me. Where are you taking me? Is Matt here? Will I see him? Are you dead, too?”

Each one of her questions was like a stab in the heart. She had no idea what was going on. She thought she was going to see her brother again. That I was taking her to him.

I opened my mouth, but my throat closed up, only allowing a squeak to escape. This couldn’t be happening. I willed my blood to mix, to give me strength. I had to put an end to this now. Matt couldn’t lose Amber—and to Tartarus, of all places. Amber was a sweetheart. No way did she deserve this. The only reason she was here was because of me. My skin rippled as my power surged through my veins.

Amber stepped back, her eyes widening at the sight of my flesh moving as if snakes were crawling under it. “What’s happening to you?”

I found my strength and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Hades!” I yelled his name over and over, refusing to stop until he came. Until he undid what he’d done. Until he brought Amber back to life, and not as a zombie.

A swirl of black smoke approached from above. I stopped yelling and focused all my energy, my anger, into making my blood boil. If he didn’t listen, I’d start raising every soul in this place until he stopped me. That meant I was most likely going to die in a matter of minutes, but I didn’t care.

Hades appeared out of the smoke and smiled at me. Smiled. Of all things. He was enjoying my misery. “Nice to see you again, Jodi Marshall. You’ve been away for so long.”

How long had it been? I felt like the last slip into my Ophi soul hadn’t been long ago at all.

“Enough with the small talk. We both know what I’ve been doing, and I just discovered what you’ve been doing.” I motioned to Amber. “I’m not taking her to Tartarus.” I kept my voice firm, steady, masking my fear with the power in my blood.

“Oh, no?” He smiled again, looking amused.

“No. You’re going to bring her back to life. She didn’t deserve to die. You only took her to punish me. You knew it would destroy Matt, and that I’d come back here to stop you.”

Hades shrugged, playing innocent. “How do you know it wasn’t simply her time to die?”

“Don’t play games with me. We both know you’re trying whatever you can to get me back here, fully back. You’re desperate. You thought having Alex talk to me would be enough.”

Hades laughed. “It would’ve been if you weren’t so focused on your human side. Have you noticed your emotions have changed? Old feelings returning to you?”

Crap! He could read me like a freakin’ book.

“Matt seems to be very important to you again. I thought maybe taking his sister would get your attention, and here you are.”

“I didn’t know you took her. This just happens when I fall asleep. My mind strays back to my Ophi soul.”

Hades clasped his hands in front of him. “No. That’s not quite how it works. You come back here for a reason. Your Ophi soul calls you because it feels there’s something you need to see.”

Was that true? Was I trying to warn myself? “You’re saying I brought my focus back here because I wanted to save Amber?”

“Exactly.”

“Fine. Then that’s what I’m going to do. Now bring her back, and not as a zombie. I want her back the way she was.”

He smirked. “It’s so cute how you think you can make demands of me.” His eyes narrowed. “No, wait. It’s just annoying.” He stepped forward so his face was only inches from mine. The heat radiating off him burned my skin. I tried to back away, but my feet were planted firmly on the ground. He was holding me there. “Return your human soul to your body or Amber spends eternity in Tartarus. There will be no deal this time. If you don’t do as I say, she will burn, over and over and over again.” He stood up tall again, and the searing pain stopped. “Your decision, of course.” He brushed his sleeve as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

What was I supposed to do? If I saved Amber, I’d be sacrificing the Ophi. Alex’s face popped into my head. Arianna, Leticia, Tony, Jared, Carol, McKenzie, Lexi—even Ethan. I couldn’t let them all be trapped here until Hades decided to kill them. I’d given up on Chase. He belonged with Hades. But the others… And trying to raise all the souls in the underworld wasn’t going to work. Hades would kill me before I succeeded.

I turned to Amber. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this, and if I could save you, I would.”

“You can save her.” Hades moved closer to Amber. “She has the power to save your soul. She’s just choosing not to. She wants you to suffer.”

“That’s not true!” I focused on Amber, pleading with her with my eyes. “Listen to me. He wants you to hate me, to think this is my fault, but he did this. If I save you, I’d be killing eight other people. I can’t do that. It’s awful, but losing one soul is better than losing eight.”

“Come now. Don’t lie to the poor girl. The people you are choosing to save aren’t really people at all. They’re monsters.”

“No, they’re not.” I faced him head-on. “I’m not. You can call us monsters, but what we do is nothing compared to what you do. You’re torturing Amber to get what you want.” I turned back to her. “That’s the truth, Amber. He’s doing this to you.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the gate to Tartarus. “Is it going to hurt?”

Hades smiled. “More than you could imagine.”

Amber began to sob. “But why? I’m not a bad person.”

I gently touched her arm. “No, you’re not.” I glared at Hades. “He is.” I hugged Amber and whispered in her ear, “I’ll try everything I can to get you out of here. I promise. Try to hold on. Try to shut off your mind until I can figure this out.”

“Matt…he isn’t in there too, is he?”

“No.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her he was alive again. That would only make things worse.

“Good.” Her body shook as she took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure.

“I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“So, I guess you’ll be escorting her inside?” Hades asked.

I didn’t respond, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of admitting defeat.

Amber looked at me and reached for my hand. My eyes shut, futilely trying to hold back the tears.

“I don’t blame you, Jodi.”

Well, that did it. It was like a dam breaking. I stepped forward, leading Amber to the afterlife she didn’t deserve as Hades’ laughter bellowed behind us. Part of me wished I’d return to my human soul so I didn’t have to endure this. It was almost as much torture for me as it was for her, especially since I knew how painful the punishments were in this place.

Tony stepped toward me from the gates of Tartarus and wrapped me in a hug. Somehow he seemed to know that, no matter how strong I was supposed to be, I needed support. I smiled up at him as I pulled back and wiped my tears. He knew me well enough to know I didn’t want to discuss what had just happened, so he motioned for Ethan to step aside and let Amber and me pass.

I held her hand as I escorted her to Bristol, one of the Ophi from the school who had chosen to follow Victoria and Troy’s evil plan and landed herself in here.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I approached her. “I want you to know that Hades is torturing this girl—Amber—because he is trying to hurt me. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s innocent.”

Bristol stared at me completely unfeeling for a moment, but then her eyes flickered to Amber, who was trying to keep a brave face but was failing miserably.

“Bristol, please, I’m begging you to go easy on her. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Oh, and I deserved this?” She held her arms out wide, gesturing to her own imprisonment. An imprisonment I’d doomed her to.

“You came after me. You chose to follow Victoria. What was I supposed to do? She was going to kill me, and you volunteered to help.”

She lowered her head. “I thought Victoria was right. I thought we had to wage a war against Hades to avoid something like this.” She raised her eyes to mine. “Not all of us could be the Chosen One and instinctively know the right thing to do. I chose wrong.”

“Is that really how you feel?”

She glanced at Victoria about twenty feet away, torturing a soul and smiling wickedly. “I hate her. She’s pure evil.” Her gaze returned to me. “I’m sorry for trying to hurt you.”

I nodded. “I’ll make a deal with you.” Apparently, all I did anymore was make deals. “If you take care of Amber as best as you can without letting Hades get too suspicious, I’ll find a way to take you with me when I free my friends.”

She raised her brows. “You’d do that? Even after I—”

I held up my hand to stop her. “Consider it done. Just promise me you’ll take care of Amber for me.”

“I promise.” She fidgeted with her hands. “Should we shake on it or something?”

“No, that would look too suspicious. We can’t let anyone know we’re working together. It would be bad for both of us.”

“Got it. I’ll pretend I still hate you.”

“Good.”

“But, Jodi?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t, and I really appreciate what you said. Even if you fail, and we don’t get out of here, the fact that you’re willing to forgive me and save me from this…well, it means a lot.”

I nodded, not wanting to smile since Bristol and I weren’t supposed to be friendly to each other. I turned to Amber and squeezed her hand. “You’ll be okay. Stick by Bristol.”

She managed to raise one corner of her mouth a fraction of an inch. I hugged her one last time and left Tartarus. I should’ve headed back to the palace and waited for my next soul, but instead I went straight for the Fields of Asphodel.

Alex and Arianna were at the gate. My mouth curved into a smile the second their faces came into focus. I rushed for them, and they wrapped me into a group hug.

“God, I missed you guys.”

Arianna kissed the side of my head. “Sweetheart, you have no idea.”

I stepped out of their arms and took them in from head to toe. They both looked worn out, and Arianna had several bruises and burn marks on her arms.

“Ari, what happened?” I gently took her hand to get a closer look.

“Don’t you worry about that. I can handle myself just fine. You have enough going on, so don’t give it another thought.”

I looked to Alex for an explanation. He sighed. “Hades has been going harder on some of us lately.”

“Because of me.” I let go of Arianna’s hand and inhaled as deeply as I could to stop myself from screaming my head off. If I alerted Hades to my whereabouts, he’d be here and forcing me back to the palace. He wouldn’t approve of my visits with Alex or any of the others.

Arianna gave Alex a reprimanding look. “Don’t you go listening to him. I mean it, Jodi. He had no right to tell you that. We’re fine.”

She was wrong about so many things. They weren’t fine, and Alex had to tell me that because I needed to know.

“Hades was really angry when he found out his plan to have me bring you back didn’t work.”

“I know.” I closed my eyes, trying to erase the image of Amber looking helpless and scared from my brain. “He killed Matt’s sister and had me escort her to Tartarus. That’s why I’m here. My Ophi soul called me back to save Amber.”

“Did you?” Alex asked.

“No, but I made a deal with Bristol.”

“Bristol?” Alex shook his head. “I don’t know if you can trust her. She—”

“I think she really feels like she made a mistake helping Victoria and Troy. She wants to get out of here just as much as we do, and she apologized for trying to hurt me.”

“You believe her?” Alex wasn’t buying it.

“I have to. She’s agreed to take care of Amber until I can find a way to get her out of here.”

“Jodi, if Hades took her, then all you can hope for is to raise her soul. She’d be—”

“Maybe not. If I can figure out how to stop Hades from messing with us for good, then maybe I can convince him to bring Amber back—human.”

Alex put his hands on his hips. “That’s asking for a lot.”

“I know.” I was resting all our hope on Medusa knowing the answer, knowing how to defeat Hades. If she didn’t…

Alex moved toward me and took both my hands. “There’s something else you need to know.”

Not more bad news. I couldn’t handle anything else.

“Hades is still trying to use me to get to you, so take this however you want, but I have to tell you.”

This was going to be awful. No, devastating.

“Tell me.”

“He told me where he’s been going.”

“Is he hunting down other Ophi?” That was what I’d assumed.

“He’s hunting you. He wants to kill you in human form. It’s his back-up plan since his other scare tactics to bring you back here aren’t working. The only problem is, he doesn’t know what body you’ve chosen to occupy.” He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed before continuing. “But, Jodi, he said that, if he doesn’t find you in the next two days, he’s going to take your mom.”