“Then why didn’t they kill me before?”
Cerberus makes a sound deep in his throats that sounds so much like a dog’s version of “ruh-roh” that I almost laugh.
Oh well. Chalk yet another thing up to gods and magic. That list is getting long fast.
A noise somewhere between a keening wail and a foghorn—a sound I’m familiar with, living in San Francisco—rises over the water.
“Here he comes!” Rus jiggles in joyful anticipation.
“Who? Hades?”
All three heads shake. “Charon.”
Charon.
It takes a solid few seconds for that to sink in. Longer than it should, but I’m still dealing with fuzzy-minded fatigue. “The ferryman of the dead?”
Three nods.
Cerberus brought me to Charon? My stomach flips over. I’ve heard so many descriptions—some say he’s all bones with no flesh, and others say that his eyes will haunt me if I look directly at him, and even more reference horns and a tail and bloodred skin. But all the descriptions of this god share a single theme…he’s scary.
“Couldn’t you just go get Hades?” I ask.
Cerberus shakes his head. “I was told that any time you showed up here, I should never leave you alone. I am your safe passage.”
Oh.
“And Charon wants to meet you.”
Charon wants to—
Elysium save me.
47
The Ferryman
Before I can ask another question, a boat appears at the end of the dock out of nowhere, and by that I mean it wasn’t there, and now it is. No slowly-rowing-across-the-river bullshit. And no tiny boat that seats ten or fewer people. This thing is as big as a pirate ship and similarly styled.
A gangplank drops down to the dock with a thud I can feel from here, and people start walking out. Dazed-looking people who are… I stare a little harder as they near where I’m lying. Yup. They are see-through.
Dead souls. I’m looking at freaking dead souls.
Cerberus moves off the dock to the shore, allowing them room to pass, and several give him wary, wide-eyed stares and an even wider berth, but he just stands there, Rus panting. The souls don’t look at me at all, like I don’t even exist.
They walk onto shore and up to a series of steps that seem to disappear into the cavern wall. The first to reach the steps stops until all of them are lined up, and I can’t help but laugh. “I guess you have to wait in line even when you’re dead.”
Then the soul in the lead climbs to the top, and the moment she touches the cavern wall, a crack in what I thought was solid stone opens up with a grinding of rock on rock, revealing a gated entrance with traditional Greek fluted columns to each side and scrolling carvings across the top. And beyond…
I can’t help the gasp that escapes me.
It feels like I’ve been gasping a lot lately, but I’m only mortal, after all.
Besides, the view is worthy of a gasp.
Because beyond, even still seated where I am, I can see the beginnings of the Underworld, and it’s nothing like I imagined. Stairs—lots and lots of stairs—lead up a mountainside into a world that isn’t fire and brimstone. Not here, at least. Here is…enchanted.
Against what looks like a night sky but is really a cavern roof thousands of feet above, everything glows—the same as the river and the ceiling where I am, only more intensely. It’s all blues and purples and greens and whites and pinks. There are flowers, trees, and vines, and pathways lead up into mountains a thousand times more magnificent than Olympus.
I catch only the barest glimpse from where I am, but that’s all I need to know why Hades doesn’t live with the other gods. Why he prefers to stay here.
“It’s so…” I can’t find the right word. “Why did Persephone hate it here?”
“She didn’t.”
I whip around to find a man standing at my feet and have to tip my head back to see all of him.
This can’t be Charon. Can it?
He’s…really hot.
I mean, not like Hades. But this being who is described as all things hideous is anything but. Tall and lean, he has sandy-brown hair that looks almost blond against fawn-colored skin and laughing eyes somewhere between blue and green. He’s not the brooding kind of handsome I’d expect, given the “Ferryman of the Dead” title and all. Instead, he comes off as…approachable…with kind eyes and the type of open face that invites you to grab a beer and have a chat.
He tips his head with a warm smile that makes me want to smile back. “I’ve been curious about you, Lyra Keres.”
“Um…same.” I shake the hand he offers, but I can’t make myself get to my feet. I’m still too wiped from my bodysurfing experience.
