Hellhound (5 page)

The sub sentry and minion waited for me. They didn’t
plan to leave, and I couldn’t make them.

“Don’t have all day, Selene,” the minion commented.

Right, and I didn’t have a choice. All clan members
had to report to the cerebral chamber every three months. Thanks to this room,
crime levels in our clan remained low because the muses extracted our memories
and detected traces of disobedience. Other clans didn’t have this because there
were only three muses and they belonged to us.

I took a step forward and pressed my hand into the
circular nook to the right of my ancestor’s depiction. My essence emerged from
my pores in swirls of dark red and black. A crimson glow appeared between my
hand and the bronze material. Then the entire door glowed. They slid apart with
a creak.

I stepped over the threshold. The doors closed behind
me with an echo that bounced against thick interior walls. I stood as close to
the doors as possible in the empty, twelve-foot, circular chamber. The smooth,
metal walls were bare, dark. One, small light to my left illuminated the room,
and cast odd shadows in the distance.

The ancient muses lived in our domicile, trapped in
this chamber for the purpose of the Council. They materialized from thin air.
Dense, colored particles gave the appearance of solid flesh cloaked in cloth,
similar to a hologram.

I hated giving them my memories. No one should know them
except me, but relinquishing them proved I was not a criminal.

The cloth-like façade covered their faces. The woman
in the middle stepped forward. “Welcome, Selene.”

“We recognize you anywhere,” another spoke.

Their majestic voices echoed, creating a haunting
ripple of sound.

I swallowed. “Let’s get this over with.”

All three smirked and rushed into me at once. I gasped
as their force slammed me against the door. For the most part, they dissipated
into air, but a small portion passed through my skull and entered my brain. I
dropped to my knees and cradled my head between curled fingers. With my teeth
clenched, jaw tight, and eyes pressed, I rocked on my haunches.

The muses moved across my thoughts, creating a vicious
headache as they replicated memories and stored them in the chamber.

My body heat rose. Sweat beads tickled as they slid
down my flesh. My breathing escalated until my lungs hurt, my chest burned. I
thought my head might explode, as if my brain throbbed, pounded against bone.
Heavy breathing turned into muffled whimpers. Panting turned into hissing. Just
when I lost self-control, just before screaming, the pain vanished. The muses
disappeared and took with them everything I knew.

I fell back, wiped my face, and stared at emptiness
with indignation. I loathed this chamber.

The door opened behind me. Brighter light filled the
room. I hurried to my feet, stumbled out, and growled at the minion. He’d
waited for me. Now that he knew I had complied, he left with smug satisfaction
on his face.

“Are you all right, Selene?” a sub sentry asked.

I groaned and turned the corner. The sub sentry
vanished behind me, and the minion took a left ahead. I leaned against the
wall, alone for now. I shivered, as if a fever consumed me.

After catching my breath and regaining balance, I
slowly walked back to the elevator, and headed to my apartment. Exhausted, and
feeling trapped between duty and desire, I crashed on the couch face first. The
fabric smelled a bit stale, and a tassel from a pillow irritated my nose.

From an early age, the Elders taught us that giving
our memories to the muses ensured two rules to survival. First, the Council
would know who harbored criminal behavior, in effect lowering crimes. Second,
our history would survive through the ages.

If I refused to go into the chamber, the Council would
think bad things and force me into the cerebral chamber. If I fought them, they
would kill me. Physically fighting the Elders was an obvious sign of rebellion.
I didn’t have a choice but to enter the chamber. I hated the Council for this.

Why only the Elders? Why couldn’t the rest of us view
memories? Were they hiding something? Keeping things from us?

When the Council sat down to view the day’s memories,
they would witness mine. My desires and actions would be filleted open,
presented naked to the Council. They would experience every agreeable notion I
had about rebelling against tradition and expectations.

Flipping over, the pain subsided, and physical
calmness returned. Emotional calmness, on the other hand, was lost.

I loved Demetrius. How could I hurt my father? How
could I stand up to him? It was time to leave.

I packed my belongings, only a few things of necessity
since I didn’t own much.

A hard knock stole my attention. I peered around the
bedroom door one last time before swinging open the front door, half-expecting
Father, or at the least, Nathanial. Instead, Demetrius stood in the hall.
Cinder smudged his face. His dark locks were a mess. His clothes singed. He
smelled of ash and metal.

“Come in.” I took his hand and yanked him inside, then
locked the door. Once he turned, I tossed my arms around his neck and hugged
him. “Haven’t showered, have you?”

He kissed me with dry lips. “Sorry. Didn’t want to
waste time.”

“Why are you so dirty? Looks like someone got the
upper hand on you.”

He laughed, dropped on the couch, and pulled out
something wrapped in cloth from his coat. “For you, lover.”

“What is this?” I uncovered a glowing chunk of silver
metal.

“A suitable weapon for a hunter.”

“Am I supposed to clobber someone over the head with
it?”

He took the stone back. “You’ll see. It’ll be made
into a weapon.”

“First, you should shower.” I crinkled my nose.

He raised an arm and sniffed. “That bad?”

I nodded.

He smiled and walked toward the bathroom. “You mind if
I shower here?”

“Go ahead. Extra stuff in the closet.”

When he closed the door, I picked up the phone and
called Father. I couldn’t leave without a farewell, without being adult enough
to tell him. I picked Demetrius over everything else, but I couldn’t bear the
thought of never seeing or speaking to Father again. Still, relief filled me
when he didn’t answer.

Demetrius emerged from a steamy room ten minutes
later. He ran his fingers through wet locks and gave a drowsy smile.

“Tired?”

He nodded.

“Get some rest. We’ll talk later.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

He walked into the bedroom. About five minutes later,
snoring vibrated through the air.

I tried not to worry about meeting Father and
discussing my decision like an adult. He would find me when he was ready.
Easier said than done. I kept checking the phone. Was it on? Had I missed a
ring while in the bathroom? Did he call when I dialed his number again, and we
missed each other? I groaned and sat on the couch to stare blankly at a wall.

When Demetrius awoke, we went to see the blacksmith.
The broad, tan man was a descendent of Hephaestus, once known as the god of
fire, metalwork, and sculpture. The blacksmiths possessed great skill, and it
showed when he took the chunk of metal and formed it in front of our eyes. He
moved with speed, precision and pounded the silver into a weapon.

A cleared table acted as his work area, while scrap
metal and weapons cluttered the rest of the room. Whenever he dipped the metal
into cold water, steam rose. I didn’t know how he breathed in here. The ventilation
wasn’t enough. I wiped trickles of sweat from my face.

In between heating, pounding, and cooling, he joked
with Demetrius. They laughed about something in reference to the trackers from
Greece. I didn’t get it.

“Where did you get the idea for this?” he asked
Demetrius.

“Her, my muse.”

He glanced at me and smiled. “Is this for you?”

I shrugged. I guessed so.

“Where did you get this metal?”

“Too many questions, old man,” Demetrius half joked,
half advised.

“Be careful with it. Here.” He walked toward me with a
limp leg. Dirty overalls and steel boots masked whatever was wrong with his leg
or foot. He lifted a crescent shaped, shiny piece of metal. “Push out some
essence.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“It needs some of your essence to work,” Demetrius
said.

“I don’t understand. Can a part of my essence survive
outside of my body without me close by?”

“It can if encased in this mineral.”

“Which makes me wonder where you got it from,” the
blacksmith commented.

Demetrius scowled.

“Fine.” I did as Demetrius directed and covered my
hand over the metal, concealed the opening so when my essence emerged, a small
part of it filled the metal. I snapped it shut.

“That’s it,” the blacksmith said. “Now, to fairly warn
you, if the Elders ask me about this, I’m not going to lie.”

Demetrius chuckled. “That’s why I didn’t tell you
much. Thanks, old friend.”

“Anytime.”

Demetrius placed a hand on the low of my back and
escorted me through the room.

The blacksmith called out, “Now I know how to make it
and how it works.”

“But you don’t know where to find the metal,”
Demetrius yelled back.

“How does this work?” I asked.

We emerged from the workroom, cut through a wide hall,
and bypassed the blacksmith’s shop to reach the elevator. Finally, I could
breathe without inhaling smoke and metal particles.

Demetrius placed a finger to his lips and remained
hushed until we returned to my apartment. While he closed the door, I checked
my phone. No missed calls.

I sat next to Demetrius on the couch. He took the
crescent from me and examined it. The smooth surface broke into teeth when he
wrapped it around one wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying it out.” He hissed, clenched his eyes, and
reopened them. “Damn, that is strong.”

I pulled the cuff off. “Don’t do that!”

The teeth retracted.

“Is my essence inside of you?”

“Was inside. It’s so strong it overpowers my thoughts,
but it’s back inside the crescent.”

“So what is this?”

“I’d heard of this metal through myth. It protects
essences. I thought, what if it injects the essence of someone who’s extremely
powerful into a person’s body? With this weapon, you can control another
Mythian, in theory anyway.”

“Control how?”

“I think your essence is so unique and powerful and
with this rare mineral, you’d be able to inject your essence into a Mythian and
control them, mind control. Without the mineral, your essence would return
right back to you.”

“Oh, I see and if it falls into the wrong hands?”

“You’re the only who can control your essence, so I
can’t use it on someone and control them. It’ll yield only to you. But if your
essence returned to you, it might work with someone else who has an essence as
powerful as yours.”

“Where did you get this?”

“Tartarus.”

Astonished, my breath caught in my throat. “You went
there and survived?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I can fly, remember? The only way I can bring
something out is if I fly out in this form, not smoke. Getting down was easy,
it was getting back out in this form that nearly killed me.”

“What’s it like there?”

“Hot, dark, and closed in. Lava gives the only source
of light. The entrance is high above sea level on a mountain in Greece, and the
tunnels leading down are treacherous. Jagged rocks falling everywhere, erupting
bubbles of steam, quakes, no wonder humans called it hell.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that term.”

He ran a finger across the crescent on my lap. “A
hunter with a weapon from Tartarus? I think Hellhound is a befitting name for
you.”

I laughed. “Associating me with Cerberus? Should I be
offended or flattered?”

“Flattered. He was a ruthless hunter, and an amazing
hunter deserves the best of weapons.”

“You crazy beast.” I didn’t know what else to say. His
travels were amongst the most dangerous I’d heard of.

He chuckled. “Should we take it for a spin?”

Excited to try it out, I said, “Let’s go!”

Demetrius stood. “By the way, what’s up with the
suitcase?”

“What do you think about having a roommate?”

He grinned. “Is this your next move? You’re choosing
me?”

“Yes.”

He took the suitcase. “Then let’s not waste time.”

Chapter Five