“I can’t tell you that.”
“Who are you?”
“Who I’ve always been.”
“Who’s your father?”
He looked away. “El. He is my father.”
I nearly choked. “God.”
Adonis’s face turned pensive. “He’s your father too.”
“No, no He’s not. I think we all know who my father is.” I tried to pull away, but Adonis wouldn’t let me. We continued to climb in silence. The air getting thick with smoke as we neared the top.
Seth and Icarus didn’t make any more moves to hurt us, though they scowled a lot more than usual, which seemed strange considering Seth had been happily flirting his way through our entire mission thus far.
“I kind of hate him.”
“Heard that,” Seth called back.
Adonis shook his head and grinned. “He hates himself, and he would never actually hurt you. It’s just child’s play. Think of our little scuffles as a warm up.”
“Heard that too,” Seth yelled ahead of us. I could see Icarus shaking his head as well, as if he wanted to get in and say something back to Adonis but clearly didn’t know what to say to some sort of heavenly being who could rock his world without lifting a pinky finger.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were…”
“Different?” Adonis finished for me. “Would it have mattered so much? Does it matter now?”
“You’re perfect.”
At that, Adonis threw his head back and laughed. “Um no, that would be a gross miscalculation on your part. Don’t worry about what I am. Plus, aren’t we taught never to worry about anything? But to trust in Him who gives us strength?”
I grabbed his hand and sighed. “Says a son of the Most High.” I shrugged. “It’s always easier to believe in your flesh and blood.”
“Which is why it’s imperative that when your time comes, you believe in what you cannot see, not in what you see in front of you, Athena.”
A loud screeching interrupted our conversation. The mountain bellowed again, and a large door that looked a lot like something Atlas would have built, considering it was decorated with the images of planets, emerged from the ground.
“Let me guess.” I put my hands on my hips. “We go down?”
“Hey, where’d you get this one? She’s really smart,” Icarus joked. I glared at him, totally not ready to forgive him for his lapse in judgment.
“They can’t help it.” Adonis patted my back, urging me forward. “They are more bad than good. They’ll always try to pull the Darkness, no matter how much they may like the messenger.”
“That’s actually true,” Seth chimed in, then grinned. “Sorry about the threatening, Athena. Can’t say it won’t happen again. In fact, I can say with absolute certainty that I’m probably going to try to kill you again in like ten minutes.”
I nodded. “Good to know. I’ll be sure to stab you right in the heart.”
“He doesn’t have one,” Icarus pointed out. “But I guarantee, if he did, it would be yours.”
“Before I killed you, naturally.” Seth pointed to the stairs. “After you.”
Darkness greeted me. Of course, I would be the one to have to go first.
“Don’t worry,” Seth piped up behind me. “I won’t kill you when it’s dark. That would hardly be fair.”
“And you’re all about being fair. Oh wait, last time you attacked me, you paralyzed me. Thanks, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it.” His voice echoed in the stairwell. A hand grasped my side. I flinched, but Adonis murmured in my ear, so I knew it was him. This was a good call, considering I had my hand on my favorite dagger, ready to remove the hand from his arm in minutes, now that I’d had fair warning from Seth. I wasn’t going to take any chances.
“So…” Icarus lit a torch and moved to the front. “We travel down for a few hours until we get into the Circle.”
“Circle?” I repeated.
Seth moved to the front next to Icarus. “Yes, the Circle. I guess the best way to explain it is Mt. Olympus.”
“Wait, we’re in Olympus?”
“Technically we’re in Denali.” Icarus grinned. “But you didn’t really think all those stories about Mt. Olympus were fake, did you? It exists. It’s just not in the sky.”
“No, it’s thousands of feet below the earth,” Adonis said next to me.
I gulped as my feet took each stair one at a time. “Sounds a lot like Hell to me.”
Seth laughed behind me. “Wisdom becomes you, Thena. And you aren’t very far off.”
“Mt. Olympus is Hell?” I could feel my mind trying to make the calculations. If Mt. Olympus, or where the Titans resided with every other dark force, was Hell, that meant we were actually going right into…
“Level your breathing,” Adonis whispered near my ear.
“We’re traveling directly into the Abyss.”
Nobody said anything for a while. Wisdom told me to stop making my guesses out loud, but I couldn’t help it. Why wasn’t Adonis freaking out? Why were Seth and Icarus so calm?
“But they’ve been freed from the Abyss. So why are they still down here? I guess I don’t understand.”
“Freedom is in the eye of the beholder.” Seth laughed in front of me. “What is freedom, anyway? I mean, yes, the Watchers are technically free of the chains of the Abyss. The blackness has been lifted by Azazeel.”
I flinched at hearing my father’s name. But I was unwilling to allow a simple identity to upset me. I continued climbing down. The closer we got, the hotter it became. It didn’t really bother me; it was just irritating, and unfortunately fit with every stereotypical idea of Hell I’d ever heard.
“So, freedom.” I repeated what Seth had just mentioned. “What do you mean? They are free but not really free?”
“Someone needs to free them.”
“Not it,” I murmured.
Adonis laughed next to me.
Seth let out a loud sigh. “Don’t worry. It would be an impossible task, even for you, Thena. Only one can free them.”
“Who is that?”
“The one who put them there.”
I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going. “Raphael?”
“The one and only.” Seth cursed. “Imagine, an archangel coming down to the Abyss? It would never happen.”
Confused, I blurted, “But I thought that’s what this entire mission was about. Everyone’s freaking out over the Titans being free. Atlas is running around, so clearly he’s free. I don’t get it.”
“Soon,” Icarus piped up. “Very soon you will.”
Chapter Fifteen
We traveled down for a few more hours. Each step I took made me more curious. The walls were dark, but every once in a while I would see a flash of light below us, illuminating enough of the mountain to see things I was sure would never in my existence be blotted from my memory.
Faces of all different shapes, colors, and sizes were carved into the mountain walls. Some were screaming in pain, others looked sad, and many of them looked insane. Teeth were missing, eyes were missing, and at one point it looked like worms were crawling out of one of the faces.
Another light flickered, and I heard screaming. I tucked my body into the cave of Adonis’s form and flinched. The screaming intensified, and then it was as if someone turned on a bright orange light.
The entire inside of the mountain illuminated. I really wished it would have stayed dark. The faces weren’t just carved stone. They were real. And it wasn’t just faces but bodies of people in the walls of the cavern, absolutely paralyzed.
Seth cursed and came up to my other side. “Purgatory.”
“You’re kidding,” I said without thinking.
“Nope.” Seth nodded toward the side of the wall. “Ever wonder what happens to those who defy El? How about those who defy humans? Themselves? The betrayers? The ones who go against everything they were created for?”
I swallowed. “They go to Hell.”<
br />
Seth nodded. “Not just any Hell. You see, there really are circles. When you fall, when you choose the Darkness over the Light, you serve time here. For humans it’s easy. They get tossed into the fiery pit, experience the worst torture imaginable, and are in a free fall that lasts for eternity. For our kind…” Seth’s nostrils flared, he shook his head, and kicked the rock beneath his foot, “…for our kind, we’re given Purgatory.”
I looked closely at the wall. One of the faces had red eyes; I noticed the woman next to him had wings.
“Fallen angels?”
Seth nodded. “Angels, vampires, werewolves, demigods, Phantoms, Seekers… really, I could go on, but all you need to know is every scary story ever told to little children is probably present in this room. We aren’t given the same treatment as humans when we die. We’re placed here.”
“Kinda makes you not want to die,” I said breathlessly as I glanced at the beautiful woman with tears running down her cheeks. I watched in horror when a rip tore through one of her wings. Black blood trickled down the her back and maggots consumed her flesh.
“You have no idea…” Seth shook his head. “… how badly I want to stay alive.”
“So bad you’d kill me to succeed?”
“I’d kill every last angel, every last brother I have, in order to save myself from this.”
Adonis tensed beside me. “Selfishness and sin at its finest, Athena.”
“You know nothing, Zar.”
Adonis’s hand clenched mine. Where had I heard that word before? Zar? It was Hebrew. My mind should have worked faster, but the fatigue and stress from the trip was getting to me. Not to mention I hadn’t shared a kiss with Adonis in a few hours. Not that I was in any position to ask him, a Zar, for anything. His betrayal made me stubborn. Seth interrupted me.
“What? You didn’t know?”
Adonis jerked me closer to him. “If you speak of this, I will end you.”
Seth lifted up his hands and smirked. “She should at least get the truth from you, considering.” He gave me a cruel smile and waited.
I stopped walking down the stairs.
Icarus cursed. “Are we really doing this now?”
Adonis looked away from me. “Zar means alien.”
I wasn’t sure what everyone expected me to say. I mean, was I supposed to freak out? Give him a high five? Hug him?
Clearly, Seth wanted a better reaction than me sitting there completely unimpressed. “He’s not one of us.”
“Got it,” I answered. “He’s an alien.”
Seth seemed frustrated as he threw his head back and laughed. “You didn’t think humans were the only chosen creation, did you?”
“That’s enough, Seth.” This from Adonis.
But Seth didn’t stop. “Have you any idea, Athena, how many other races were created? Do you even realize how small of a part you play in this giant drama that El calls life? Do you?” Bitterness seeped out of his every word.
I shook my head.
Icarus grabbed Seth’s arm and pulled him back from me. Seth turned toward the wall and leaned against it, the faces stared at him, trained on him.
“So many races were destroyed in the original Fall,” Icarus whispered. His voice somehow echoed through the mountain. “Adonis is one of the last of his.”
“Last?” I repeated.
Icarus nodded. “He has power to command the angelic beings, but he isn’t an angel. He’s a hyper-breed. Created for one thing and one thing only.”
“What?” I asked.
“Manipulation and war.”
“Aphrodite?” I whispered.
Adonis sighed. “My sister.”
“Right.” I laughed. “Well, that’s just great. I’m stuck down here with some alien who used to be my best friend but thought it wasn’t necessary to tell me his origin of creation, a fallen angel, and a Phantom. Perfect.”
“Let’s not forget the millions of dark fairytales lining the walls,” Seth chimed in.
No one ever said Seth was helpful.
I sighed and continued the descent.
“Thena, wait.” Adonis gripped my hand. I jerked back.
“You want me to trust you with my life, when you can’t even tell me who or what you really are?”
His eyes were sad. He licked his lips and turned away. “You’re right.” He continued walking next to me and said nothing more.
Honestly, it explained so much. The angels weren’t stupid enough to give me another Seeker. How had I not pieced this together sooner? Adonis entered into my world when I was almost fully grown in form. All it took was for him to spew some tale about being a child in the Fall, and I assumed his story was just as tragic as mine.
But I wasn’t even close. If he was from a different race altogether, it meant we had nothing in common. It also meant that he wasn’t an angel, though a few minutes ago that had been exactly what I was thinking.
My foot slipped on the next stair. The last thing I needed was to fall down the stairs and find myself with broken bones in the presence of all the Titans. Nothing was making sense. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. I felt lonely, and for the first time in my existence, truly afraid.
“I would feel afraid too, my love. After all those years. To be betrayed, it seems unfair, does it not? Think of how the angels deceived you, how Michael did not even trust you.”
I shook my head against the treacherous words. The voice was the same as before, only this time it seemed stronger.
“I would never betray you, Thena. I love you.”
I clenched my teeth and kept walking.
Seth fell into step beside me. “You’re either losing your mind, have a bug in your ear, or something is up.”
I bit my lip. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Seth said immediately. “You’re upset.”
“Clearly you’re a genius.”
Seth cursed and ran both hands through his golden hair. “I’m just trying to cheer you up. It would hardly be fair for me to betray you in front of all the Titans when you’re not even up to par.”
“Your words are a balm to my soul,” I fired back sarcastically.
“There, she is.” Seth laughed. “No, but seriously, you need to get it together, like now.”
“Why? It’s not as if—”
A shriek broke through the mountain, causing it to tremble. The stairs suddenly ended. Nothingness stretched out below me. I half-expected Seth to push me, but he looked just as freaked out.
Icarus stepped around us and out into the nothingness. I reached out to stop him, but Adonis pulled me back. I wanted to close my eyes. I didn’t want to watch Icarus fall to his death.
But instead of falling, he was walking, across the air as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Once he reached the other side of the wall, he ran his hands across the rock in a circular motion.
A red light broke through the dark surface creeping around the giant wall and then shooting out toward our faces, illuminating the path Icarus had just taken. Slowly, I stepped out and made my way to where he stood. Seth and Adonis followed.
“So do we just go in?” I asked.
Icarus laughed. “It would be kind of a waste of a journey if we didn’t, don’t you think?”
“Right.” I didn’t budge.
Icarus pushed against the wall. It slid slowly to the right. I expected it to be the size of normal door.
It wasn’t.
There was nothing normal about this door. It stood around three hundred feet tall and two hundred feet wide. More red light escaped the entrance. It was only pushed open far enough for us to step through.
Great. We’d officially just switched from high and low places to small confined spaces.
Adonis went in first. I went in behind him, then Seth, and finally Icarus. Torches lit the narrow hallway. Big shock, but there were steps leading further down. We were probably going to be at the earth’s core any minute now.
I counted
the steps.
Ninty-nine of them, to be exact.
It was the only way I could keep my mind focused on the task at hand. It’s hard to use wisdom in situations where all you can focus on is the darkness around you. I was trained to ignore it. But darkness like that, the kind that chokes you, was kind of hard to ignore.
Finally, at the bottom of the stairs the room fanned out.
My foot met a giant circle and within that circle were six smaller ones, if you could call around twenty thousand square feet small.
In the center of the circle was a man. He stood around twelve feet tall. We slowly approached him. His hair was pitch black, his eyes a blazing white. I wanted to look away. But it was impossible. He was both beautiful and terrifying. My feet kept me advancing in a straight line toward the man. In his hand was a long scepter. His robes were red and draped to the floor in a puddle around his feet. They seemed to be almost part of the ground, as if he was unable to move.
Seth spoke first. “Iapetos, we need to pass.”
An involuntary shiver ran down my spine. Iapetos was one of the brothers, one of the Titans. Before the Fall, he was in charge of assigning a lifespan to humans. Before the Great Flood it was well known humans lived to be over nine hundred years old.
Once the Watchers or Titans fell, the days of man were numbered as a way to punish the human race along with the angels. Iapetos lost his job, and El threw him into the Abyss along with his brothers.
His red eyes flashed to me. “Athena.”
Fantastic, creepy Titan knows my name.
“Yes,” I answered more confidently than I felt.
Iapetos’s lips formed a smile. “I have been waiting thousands of years for you.”
“Lovely.” I croaked. “Sorry I can’t say the same.”
At that, he threw his head back and laughed. “I understand, dear one. Now, run along. They are waiting for you.”
“Are you coming with us?” I asked casually.
A shadow fell across Iapetos’s face. “No, my dear. I am unable to move from this place.”
“But I thought you were free?”
“Free?” Iapetos sputtered. “Freedom is defined in many ways, I guess. I am no longer blinded by El, but as you can see, I am not free. I am stuck into the very ground I was thrown upon.”