Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1) (29 page)

The electricity swelled up all at once, as if it had been held back by a dam and was unleashed, flooding through me in an excruciating explosion. Lightning burst from my palm, and like with Seth before, I worried the sheer volume of the pain might shatter me. Yet part of it, something inexplicable, edged towards pleasure. It was unlike anything else I’d ever experienced, this god-fueled power surge, and apparently Leo would suffice just as well as Seth had.

Except I was the one in charge here.

Instead of being used as a puppet, now I was the master. It was so much power I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it.

The first bolt hit the middle dog head right between the eyes.

It yowled, a sound so loud and fearsome my insides quivered. The two other heads began to growl and whine, each responding in turn to the pain being experienced by the middle head. I wondered if they could feel it too, or if each head had its own brain and therefore different pain receptors.

If I made it out of here, I could think about the biology of underworld canine guardians all I wanted. Now was the time to focus on finding a way around this thing.

The dog rose to its full height, easily twenty feet high or more. The shadow it cast blotted out the light of the flaming sky and created an aura of artificial cold around us. It was so sudden and so chilling my breath fogged out in front of me like it would on a cool winter’s day.

Drool poured from the corner of the center head’s mouth, a long string of thick liquid that dropped slowly to the ground nearby, forming a miniature pond of dog spit. The two other heads continued to snarl, this time from much higher up now that the creature was standing.

I hadn’t liked the thing when it was napping. Now that it was awake I understood completely why Hades used it as his sigil. As mascots for hell went, it did the trick nicely.

I also knew that Cerberus had only one job to do for its master, and it was a job the creature took so seriously that failure was not an option.

Cerberus existed to keep the dead from leaving the underworld.

I’d heard stories of bold men trying to escape these hallowed, unwelcome grounds, but they’d always rung a bit false. As if someone would come to the underworld with meat to ply the dog with. Having been here now, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to come prepared for the eventualities that might arise.

Cerberus took another step forward, and that’s when I spotted it. A sight so beautiful and perfect I had to restrain myself from shrieking with delight.

The three-headed dog was standing in front of a door.

A door that would lead us out.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Seeing the exit was one thing.

Actually getting to it was quite another.

There were a few things I could see that were going to get in our way when it came to an easy escape. First, the bone hill had all but collapsed, meaning the door out was about fifteen feet up the side of a black rock mountain pass. Well out of easy reach and possibly too high to climb to if no suitable foothold existed.

Second, there was no way we’d be able to make a run for it, even if I could distract all three heads at the same time.

Lastly, I’d just shot the dog in one face with a lightning bolt, and all that had done was make it angrier.

Things were
not
looking great.

Yet I still felt buoyed. We’d gotten past Charon with only a cheap necklace and a promise I had no intention of keeping. Now all we had to do was get through that door, and we could kiss this stupid place goodbye.

How did people find this so difficult?

Had Hades really believed this was a challenge worthy of our forgiveness? And why had Manea agreed to it?

My hubris took a back seat to reality when the dog heads growled in unison and the middle one lowered itself towards us, one eye closed from my blast and its lips curled back showing teeth thicker than Leo’s legs.

Right.

This was where things got tricky.

“I have an idea.” Leo surprised me by speaking, his voice enough of a shock that sparks flew from my fingers in a small arc. Cerberus snarled at the sight, having no fond memories of the last time I’d shown off.

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“Because between the two of us we’re really remarkable at coming up with bad ideas.”

Point taken.

“Touch it,” Leo said, as the head lowered closer. “Pull the energy out of me like before, and touch it.”

The suggestion bounced around inside my mind as I tried to rationalize it. In a world of endless possibilities, putting my hands on Cerberus ranked dead last in the things I wanted to do. I was pretty sure any part of me that touched the dog would be a part I wasn’t getting back.

But there was something simple to the plan, if inelegant, that sounded completely logical. I thought of the way the power had charged through him to me and made us feel tethered and connected, sharing the strength and agony.

If I could make all three heads feel the same thing, perhaps we’d have a chance.

“If I lose my hand, I’m going to be so fucking mad at you.”

“You’d lose the rest of your body that was attached to the hand too, judging by that thing’s mouth. I think I can deal with you haunting me.”

“I hate you.”

“Liar.” He smirked even as the monster’s head dipped and its snout aligned perfectly with my face.

Cerberus breathed deeply, sniffing at me, probably memorizing my scent for later torture if I ended up stuck down here. Peachy.

It was now or never.

I hoped to Seth this plan worked.

I pressed my fingers hard against Leo’s sternum, and the invisible tether binding us together pulled taut so sharply I heard an electric
snap
. My vision blurred, going pure white and blotting out everything around me. I could only sense Cerberus’s presence as a shadow on the edges of the light.

Making my best guess of the dog’s head from where it had last been, I shoved my hand outward and made contact with coarse, wiry fur. My fingernails dug deep, breaking skin, and suddenly I was the center point in a circuit. Electricity shot through Leo, burning up inside me and punching through my hand into Cerberus.

All three heads howled in unison, and the middle one tried to jerk free, but I dug in, refusing to let go. If I had to feel this terrible, the three heads of Cerberus were sure as fuck going to feel terrible right alongside me.

Leo was breathless, short, whining pants emerging from his mouth as I drained everything out of him. I wanted to stop but found I was unable. How wrong I’d been to think I was in control of this. The storm was my master, even here.

A scream ripped through me as the lightning ate away whatever was holding my lung together. Pain suffused every cell in my body, and as I struggled to catch my breath, the taste of blood coated my throat.

This was killing me.

A million tiny deaths rioted through my body, shredding the very foundations that made me, undoing the bits and pieces that animated me. I was sure if this lasted a second longer I would simply cease to be, vanishing in a mist of nothingness, forgotten by even those with eternal memories.

Cerberus’s animal yowl matched mine, and Leo was the first to break, ripping my hand from his chest.

My vision cleared instantly, and the electricity died just as fast. I’d been unplugged.

Tears poured from my eyes, and my hands were shaking. Blood caked all of my nail beds, and I couldn’t tell if it was mine or if I’d drawn that much from both Leo and the dog.

I coughed onto the back of my hand, and blood coated my skin.

No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t catch my breath. I panted, and all I could hear was a rattling wheeze. I gave Leo a desperate look, but his gaze was locked on Cerberus. All six of the dog’s eyes had gone milk-white, the tongues lolling from three mouths. A low, guttural whine emitted from the dog’s belly, and it teetered drunkenly.

Leo had more wherewithal left in him to see what was about to happen than I did. He grabbed hold of my belt, obviously avoiding any skin-to-skin contact, and threw me past him, to the place where Charon’s boat had landed us initially. Between my deflated lung and the uneven surface beneath us, I lost my footing and hit the ground.

The whole valley shook violently with the power of an earthquake.

I didn’t think I weighed
that
much.

“Tallulah.” Leo crouched next to me, and the bare worry on his face warred with his hands, which still seemed unwilling to touch me. “Can you hear me?”

“Did I earthquake?” The words in my head did not equal the words that came out of my mouth.

He hesitated, then wedged his arm under my back and lifted me onto my feet, but not in the same effortless way he had before. We both winced from the exertion, and when we were standing, neither of us looked particularly well.

But neither did Cerberus.

The epic crash had been the dog hitting the ground, where now all three heads were resting motionless.

I briefly thought we might have killed it, but one of the heads chuffed, and a groggy wheeze emitted from the creature’s belly. The beast was down, but it was impossible to know for how long. We had to take advantage of this window to get to the door.

“Can you climb?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?” Each word was a Herculean effort, using up breath I didn’t have to spare. If we managed to get past the hellhound and out that door, I was getting myself to the nearest hospital and hoping to gods I didn’t find myself right back here in a couple days.

“Come on.” Leo was almost as wobbly as I was, and we made a slow climb up the bones towards the dog.

I saw immediately that if we were going to reach the door, we would need to do so by scaling Cerberus itself.

Super.

Each step we took I half-expected the thing to wake up, growl once, and eat us alive. However, by the time we reached one of the animal’s necks, it started to snore. I had drained almost all the life force and energy out of myself and Leo, and what had I done?

Put the guardian of the underworld down for a nap.

If I wasn’t so relieved the thing was asleep, I would have been deeply offended by how little my power had done to it. I certainly didn’t think the task Hades had given me was easy anymore. Leo paused at the animal’s neck, waiting for me, then stooped low so he could give me a boost. While I wasn’t too amped up about the idea of climbing on the back of a three-headed dog, I also had no intention of sticking around long enough to come up with a different plan.

Once I was settled, I reached down and helped Leo. His weight and decided lack of vigor threatened to pull me back to the ground, but after a minor struggle and probably some new internal bleeding, we were both up on the dog’s back.

Getting to the door was easy. So easy I thought for sure we would open it and find ourselves right back at the beginning, or Cerberus would awaken and devour us before we could pass through, like one last cruel joke from Manea.

Yet the door opened without a lock, and we just needed to climb up a few feet to get through—a huge relief since I doubted either of us could have managed more.

Leo pushed me across the threshold first and clambered through after me, shutting the door firmly behind us.

It was only then we realized we’d locked ourselves in complete darkness with no idea where we were.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The darkness was so complete and in such stark contrast to the flaming sky of the underworld, I actually believed I’d lost Leo. He was right beside me, yet the cold shell of night encroaching on me made it feel as if I were inside a solitary oblivion.

It was like being trapped inside a dream from which there was no waking.

“Leo?” My breath hitched up, edging on panic, and a white fog billowed out in front of my mouth. The sweat that had coated my body from the unbearable heat of Hades’s kingdom was now a layer of ice covering my skin, making me shiver uncontrollably.

“Are we out?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

Decades of training at the temple under the careful tutelage of the best and brightest minds hadn’t taught me anything about this. I knew all the varied names of almost every god. I knew who had the most power and who not to cross. I knew where all the designate temples across America were located.

But this was a mystery to me.

Probably because this was a bleak nothingness, and nothing could have no name.

“Are we out?” a chipper voice mocked.

“Out where?”

“There’s no out. Turn back, turn back.”

Three childish voices, echoing inside my skull. The fucking Keres were back.

“I bet you bitches are here to tell me you told me so, now that I’m in the underworld.” Though I wasn’t sure this space had tangible form, I struggled to my feet all the same and found that I could stand.

Of course, since I couldn’t see anything else except the white condensation of my breath, I didn’t take another step for fear I might free fall off a cliff. They did seem to love their cliffs around here.

“Us?” one Keres asked. “Mock?”

“We would never.”

The voices fell silent, then a giggle vibrated the air around me. “Though if we did, we might say we warned you.”

“If the last test is listening to you guys for longer than five minutes, I’d rather go back through the door and let Cerberus use me as a chew toy.” My head throbbed and my lungs felt like two plastic bags full of fire, melting from the inside out.

“What door?”

“No door.”

“No going back. Not until you’re dead…again.”

“Super-duper looking forward to that.” I fumbled in the darkness, trying to find Leo. My toe nudged him first, then I groped around until I touched his shoulders and then his hair. “Can you stand up?”

“Yeah.” He moved slow, but soon the warmth of his big body was against my side, like he needed to keep touching me in order to believe I was real. Instinctively I took hold of his hand and laced my fingers between his, giving him a firm squeeze.