Sacrifice (27 page)

“But they’re the help. The Apolluon are the elite society,” I noted. Evan nodded in agreement and a raised brow.

I surveyed the full room. Besides a few mortals sprinkled in for after dinner treats, nearly all the guests, excluding deities, were all undead souls.

Finally the doors to the ballroom opened and the guests filtered in. The gigantic ballroom was decorated, exquisitely, with gilded framed mirrors that hung on ivory walls. The eruption of jazz music performed by a ten piece, all black band in the far right corner of the room, had almost every guest dancing the Charleston. Every guest, except my disciples. We were all too busy assessing the situation.

This Lykanos packs may seem somewhat civilized while working the gala, but it was New York’s elite aristocracy that had every Ischero’s attention. Their shared physical characteristics couldn’t be ignored. The incredibly attractive and pale faces were a sharp contrast to us and the Lykanos that appeared to be in their charge. They danced and hopped around the ballroom and didn’t pay any attention to us.

“I totally understood the dynamics of this elite society.” I whispered to Evan.

“The Lykanos are enslaved servants of vampires,” Evan added as his eyes danced from one vampire to the next as they whisked by. I placed my empty champagne glass on a passing tray.

“It’s amazing how much can change in twenty-five years,” Bethany said, chuckling, lightly.

“Hades’ Apolluon vampires are shadows indoors as well as outdoors by day and for an added bonus, blood suckers by day and at twilight,” Victor added. “And the Destroyers are the blue bloods that run all of Manhattan.”

“Understandably, they will need to feast tonight, but they couldn’t really expect Ischeros to be their guests and the buffet.” Nikolas said, laughing.

That may be the plan if they really don’t know that we’re deities, I thought.

“Well, I came here to celebrate the opening of the grand hotel, and by gods, that’s what I’m going to do.” Nikolas said, and took Bethany’s hand. “Shall we, my dear?”

Bethany and Nikolas joined the couples dancing and I started surveying the Apolluon again. Suddenly the music died down as a crowd began to form a semi-circle around a booming voice that seemed to be coming from the center of it. The voice was familiar in a haunting way like a voice belonging to someone you had buried away ages ago. We all seemed to recognize the elegant diction of this deeply rich voice.

“Thank you all for joining my wife, and I tonight. This ballroom has taken a year to rebuild, and it’s more luxurious than it has ever been before. It is still the most prestigious landmark of our city,” The voice said.

Someone yelled from within the crowd, “Mr. Mayor, will you and your wife be residing at the Plaza as your family used to?”

“We will for a few months while the construction on the mayor’s mansion is completed.”

Could it be, but how? I began making my way to the center of the crowd.

“Cordelia, wait,” Evan hissed as he tried to grab hold of my arm.

I elbowed and clawed my way through the throng, leaving my Ischero disciples behind. I seemed to be blocked, strategically, by a pack of Lykanos. They each faced the person speaking into the microphone. If only I could teleport right now.

When the man’s voice rose above the crowd of guests again, my heart nearly stopped beating and I broke out into sweat. I pried two Lykanos waiters apart and slipped through the narrow space between them. They grunted, but let me through. Nothing was going to prevent me from seeing who possessed the voice that had me mesmerized.

By the time I made it to the front of the crowd, which had started dissipating as the band started playing a melody, the speaker was walking away. Several couples Lindy-hopped past me. I felt a blistering hot hand grip my gloved arm and I turned to face the assailant.

“Let go of me, Evan. I have to see who that was, before he gets away,” I said. Once I got to the last set of ballroom doors, which the man had disappeared through, I speed down the hall at my maximum speed.

“Wait!” he yelled as he sped after me.

I heard the voice again, this time it was muffled and threatening. The voice was followed by a blood-curding scream that sent shivers up and down my spine. I turned a corner to another maze of doors until I stopped behind the one where the screams seemed to originate from. It was a woman and her screams were dying out now.

I turned the doorknob but the door was locked. I looked at Evan and disappeared through the door. He was beside me as I appeared on the other side of the door. We were in a large and luxuriously decorated sitting room. Only the best at the Plaza.

The mystery man’s head was bent and seemed to be kissing a young woman’s neck, but I knew better. The young woman, who I had never seen before, was stunned as her eyes met mine. She screamed for her life and reached out for me and Evan.

By now the man had realized that he and the woman weren’t alone in the room anymore. In a blur he turned around to face us and dropped the young woman on the floor. She was dead. Our eyes met and I felt as if I was going to vomit, faint, and yank my very own heart out to stop the pain I felt surging through it. A loud gasp escaped Evan’s lips as I tried to get my bearings.

Finally, here was the revelation that Athena had spoken of.

No matter how much he may have appeared to be, the mayor of New York City and Apolluon vampire was no longer my father.

Thirty-One – Cordelia

An Encounter of the Beastly Kind

“I was told that there would be deities attending the opening of the new ballroom, but I had no idea that it would be the most divine Ischero,” my father said, as he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his blood stained mouth and chin. “Pardon me goddess, I’m dripping, and this new carpeting was shipped from France.”

I said nothing as I tried to catch my breath. My chest felt restricted as if I was wearing a corset ten sizes too small. My father stepped closer. I held out my hand, palm outward. He froze in mid-step, unable to take another.

“You’re quite a powerful, demigoddess, but I’m still quite thirsty. Won’t you oblige?”

“He’s no longer your father, Delia. Don’t let him go,” Evan whispered and then took a step in front of me.

Evan stretched out his arm and held his hand out, adding another hold on my father. My father’s veins pulsated at his temple as his mind fought to set himself free of my hold.

“You are a bewitching beauty. Have we met?” My father started to break free of my hold. He was an extremely powerful Apolluon vampire. Usually the oldest vampires were the strongest.

“Do you really not know who I am?” I asked, desperately.

“How could I forget beauty like yours? Besides, you wouldn’t have gotten away,” he said as he continued to battle against both of our powers combined.

“Hades has erased his memory and has made him very powerful. He’s breaking through.” Evan said, gritting his teeth as he held out his other hand.

“Hades warned me about a woman whose beauty surpasses all and a power that mimics his brother’s. That woman is you.”

“Evan! I can’t hold him!” I screamed.

A crashing resounded from behind me as the door to the sitting room slammed onto the floor

“What’s going on he–,” Victor said as he lunged into the room followed by Bethany, Nikolas, Julius, and Hedea.

I regretted turning my head for the one second it took for my father to gain enough power to take over me. I spun around and stopped abruptly. The temperature in my body rose and I tried to ignite my bolt but couldn’t. My father suddenly appeared two feet taller and snatched me by the neck, flipped me around, and held me in a chokehold. I don’t know when he had the time to have Evan suspended in a black mist that gradually filled the air. Somehow, my father extinguished Evan’s power and my own. We had somehow been rendered powerless within the dark mist that felt like it was gnawing at my skin. I looked into Evan’s eyes and they were a deep turquoise. We both knew what was happening. We were being smothered.

“They’re coming with me,” my father declared in a wicked chuckle that echoed around the room.

All of a sudden, he slammed through the far left wall and dragged both Evan and I in his wake. We landed in the hallway. My father crashed into another room that led to a stair well. My feet scraped the floor as he dragged us down what seemed like fifty flights of stairs at an accelerated speed. I could hear Victor and the rest of my high-ranking disciples shouting for Evan and me from above as they descended the stairs.

Suddenly the stairs disappeared and an opaque black mist met the one were wrapped in, filling the space where we floated. My father let go of us and the mist spiraled around us as we continued to fall. I tried to raise the heat in my body again, but I couldn’t produce a current. I was powerless. Through the mist, I could barely make out Evan. I could only see a silhouette swaying on the other side of my father.

We splashed into the watery black fog that wrapped around my legs like vines.

“Where… are we?” Evan asked, but the pause in his voice indicated that he already knew the answer.

“Where you’re going, you’ll never leave,” My father declared.

The fog began to clear a bit. I couldn’t see anything for a moment and then, suddenly, a blazing mountainous structure emerged in the very far distance. The cobalt blue flames reached up and licked at the turbulent clouds above it. Instantaneously, I knew that I was staring at the Underworld. The only thing separating us from the Underworld was a river of dense, wet, black fog – The River Styx.

Just then as blazing figure appeared about three feet in front of us. The figure wore a hooded cloak made of charred bones over a body of blue flames. It had no face, just a ball of fire with dark hollowed spaces where a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth should’ve been. It held a long staff in one hand and held out the other hand in our direction. It was Charon, the ferryman. He guided all the lost souls into Hades’ realm.

“They need passage to their new home,” My father said to Charon.

Charon opened his flaming hand and waited.

My father turned to me, snatched my diamond medallion from my neck, and did the same to Evan. A look of shock washed over Evan’s face.

“Why are you doing this? Don’t you know who we are?” I said to my father.

He ignored my words and dropped our medallions in Charon’s hand.

Charon turned around and my father vanished in the mist. Evan and I were left standing next to each other. Evan took my hand in his.

“My powers have been diminished. How about yours?” Evan whispered.

“I tried to ignite my bolt and I tried teleport.”

“We can’t exactly leap into this dense fog, knowing where it leads.” Evan said looking down.

At that moment, I realized that we were standing in a shallow tin boat. Evan was right. We had to do something. We were about to enter the Underworld, powerless and defenseless. I watched the mountainous structure becoming more visible and brighter. I tried to figure a way out.

Evan peered over the edge of the boat again and said, “I say we jump.”

“We don’t know where it leads.” I said, looking over the boat’s edge.

“It can’t be worse than seeing Cerberus up close,” Evan said. I detected despair in his voice.

I sent a message to Evan, telepathically. I wanted to jump over at the count of three. I waited for an indication from him that he had heard me and it came in the form of a nervous nod.

“One… two… three,” I whispered.

Both Evan and I were about to leap, rocking the boat violently for a moment, until a five foot wall of cobalt flamed lunged at us from both sides of the boat. Our plan had failed, miserably, and a wicked hiss filled our ears as Charon turned his head slightly toward us.

“Damn it,” Evan snapped. “We’re doomed.”

“I guess this was what Hermes had in mind. I suppose I will get my chance to give Hades a piece of my mind.”

“Perhaps, taste of your bolt,” Evan said, referring to my dream of marrying Hades and the kiss that transferred my powers to him.

I gulped and felt the tightness of Evans clasp around my hand. We were in this together as far as he was concerned. I wanted to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that everything would be as it was, that we’d survive whatever we’re about to face, but I couldn’t form the words. I felt like I’d be flat out lying or having him invest in false hope. Evan was to wise to fall for any of it anyway. I could only pray to my gods that my powers would surface once in the Underworld. Surely the fates weren’t ready to do any snipping now.

Evan looked me in the eyes and said, “No matter what we encounter, forget about me and get out of there.”

“No!” I whispered, harshly. “We stick together. I can handle our evil Uncle. You just make sure you get out alive, Evan. I mean it. No heroics, alright?”

“We’re not going to argue over this,” Evan whispered back. “You have an empire that needs you, alive. I’m not important.”

“You’re important to me and that’s final.”

Evan was about to say something but was too stunned by the sight before us. We were at the foot of the shore of the Underworld. The flames had to be at least a hundred feet in the air. Charon waved us forward, but neither Evan nor I budged. Charon held out a hand and somehow we were pulled forward to the shore’s edge without him ever touching us. The flames that surrounded the boats edge lowered until they disappeared into the watery fog of the River Styx. We both stepped out of the small boat onto burning coal, which made up the shore. There were human skulls mixed in with the coal as well as skeletal remains of human arms, hands, and fingers.

Although the Underworld stood at least thirty feet away, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to escape to. Before I took a few steps forward, I watched Charon float away until he disappeared in the mist. Evan stood beside me, gazing upward. When I heard the thunderous howls, I knew it had seen us. For some reason, I wasn’t frightened as the temperature rose in my body. The heat started from my toes and escalated as it rose, filling my veins and clogging my head. I couldn’t stand at the foot of this realm of hell and not try. I ignited my bolt, which crackled at first, releasing a blinding, white light, and a small current that spiraled out in spikes like barbed wires. I pulled my lightning bolt back and waited.