11. Sandro
Sandro
“W h-what do you mean? What are you going to do?” I asked, the effect of his words doing things to my body.
My un-body, I guess.
Because I wasn’t alive anymore, was I? So how could I feel things when I didn’t have a physical presence to feel them with?
No. I was dead.
Dead.
It had finally happened.
I knew my power, my death sense, was never wrong. It never failed. The only time it hadn’t was with Tomasz’s death because that hadn’t stuck. But there was a reason I shied away from everyone, from friends and acquaintances, and stuck to tattooing people I’d never see again.
It prevented me from sensing someone’s death I really cared about and then watching them die anyway because there was no way to prevent it.
And so it was with my death.
I wanted to feel betrayed by, angry, or indignant with Hades, but he was feeling those enough for me.
It was clear he’d never expected this to happen, and the strain it left on the muscles of his face was enough to put me at ease. At least as far as thinking Hades had anything to do with it.
At least not willingly.
“What are you going to do?” Tomasz asked, and Hades growled, raising his hand and covering my friend in flames.
Before I could even ask, Tomasz was gone.
“He’s safe,” he growled, and I looked at him. “He’s back home with his living lover.”
I nodded in an effort to calm him down, but I didn’t know if it worked.
It was such a juxtaposition to the sweet, affectionate guy he’d been only minutes ago—moments ago—when I was still…breathing.
He inhaled and exhaled, staring at me?—
Well, my body.
Each moment that passed, his breath got heavier, his lips shakier, and his eyes redder.
It was touching, really. Having that effect on someone. Having someone grieve me in that way.
But I knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t grieving me .
“Maybe you made a mistake,” I dared say as Pluto nuzzled against me.
At least there was one positive thing about dying. I could run my hands through Pluto’s coat and give him a belly rub again.
It was almost as if he was alive. He felt just as real as ever. The only difference was the lack of a heartbeat, but then, I was one to talk.
“What?” He turned his gaze on me, and I choked on air. I wasn’t entirely sure how that was possible when I wasn’t breathing it, but that was exactly what happened.
He startled me, the way he stared, the serial killer look on his face, the trouble brewing just beneath the surface.
But it didn’t last long.
As soon as he faced me—the transparent me—the kind, warm Hades returned if only defeated by what had just happened.
“I…I said, maybe you made a mistake. Maybe I wasn’t your Persephone. Maybe there’s still hope and…and you can still find her and save her. This was my fate. I was meant to die, but maybe she’s still?—”
He moved so fast it gave me whiplash, but his hands came up, and even though he couldn’t entirely touch me, he snatched me by the hands, and I stopped.
His hands…they felt real. If real touch was like touching glass.
No. Not glass. Fabric.
Because I could feel his grip, but it wasn’t entirely solid—I guessed I wasn’t entirely solid. It was as if there was a wall of fabric between us, and we could only touch as far as we could stretch it.
“Listen to me, Sandro. You. Are. Not. A. Mistake. Do you hear me? You are not a mistake!”
It was loud and violent and jarring, but I’d be damned if I didn’t feel it all the way down to my heart. And my heart was five feet to my right.
“O-okay.”
He huffed and shook his head, then brought a hand to my face and stroked, his gaze burning holes in my un-eyes.
“I…um…I’m still dead, H. And you said we can’t change that.”
He craned his neck and his brows furrowed.
“I didn’t say that. I’m not giving up. And neither should you.”
And with that, as if he remembered himself, he pulled away and turned his back to me.
“Hyyypnos. Thanatooos!” His words came out in slithering whispers, and it gave me un-goosebumps.
He stretched both hands forward and two flames burst out of them.
When they died away, they revealed two almost identical men.
They were tall, tanned, perfectly sculpted, and classically handsome, although that did nothing for me. Not when they were standing before a literal god of perfection.
Erm…factually speaking.
One was blond, the other brunet, and both had one black eye and one blue.
One of them, the blond, wore a white open shirt showing just how ripped he was, with blue jeans and brown work boots.
The other wore an embroidered mesh T-shirt, a matching black scarf, and long black trousers.
“M-my lord? Is that you? Those were his eternal flames. Right, Thanos?” said the blond.
“It is me!” Hades replied. “I have been freed.”
The blond gasped and nudged the other man’s sides while he looked up and behind Hades’ shoulder, right at me.
“Yo-you can see me?” I asked.
He barely moved an inch when he spoke, like a ventriloquist without a puppet.
“Of course, darling. I am Death, after all.”
“Hey!” Hades snapped at him and clicked his fingers in front of his face. “Eyes here. You don’t look at him unless I say you do.”
The man who claimed to be Death shifted and looked at Hades sheepishly.
“Master,” he mumbled and did a very dramatic bow before Hades.
The other man followed suit. They kept their poses as if they physically couldn’t break out of it unless told.
“Stop this nonsense,” Hades hissed. “Straighten up.”
They did as told.
Hades put his hands behind his back. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”
The twins looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Are you sure?” Hades growled, his voice lowering a few octaves and sounding…satanic.
The shaking intensified until they resembled bobbleheads. Empty and perpetually moving.
“Who are these…people?” I asked.
The blond one looked up at me, but before he could stare, Hades grabbed him by the neck, pinned him against the wall, and leaned into his ear.
“I said don’t look!” Spittle flew out of his mouth and landed on the man’s cheek, but he stayed as still as marble, not even attempting to wipe it away. “This is Hypnos, the master of sleep. And that is Thanatos, master of death.”
Death.
So, he had been truthful. He was death.
“H-how can we help you, my lord?” Hypnos stuttered.
Hades snarled and pushed him harder against the wall before he let go.
“It’s not you I need.” He snapped around and pointed at Thanatos. “You!”
Within moments, he was on him like he had been with Hypnos, and the man cowered while pinned to the wall and attempting to string sentences together.
“What can I do for you, my lord?”
“What did you do?”
“I-I don’t u-understand.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“We don’t, my lord,” Hypnos said, trying to aid his brother, but Hades only needed to give him one glare before he sank to the floor.
It was rather surreal, seeing two large men, the epitome of masculine beauty, the kind of beauty only found in ancient Greek statues, stutter and cower before someone almost half their size, but oh, was it quite the sight for dead eyes.
If anything, it confirmed that Hades was indeed who he said he was. And he was glorious.
“You killed my mate!” he shouted.
“I didn’t,” Thanatos said.
“He didn’t, my lord. Thanatos would never?—”
“Shut up. What did you do?”
Thanatos tried to look at me, but Hades lowered him farther against the wall, covering the god of death’s face with his own chest.
“I…I didn’t do…anything.”
“Master, please. We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you refuse to obey your king?” Hades asked Thanatos, and I gulped.
Had it just gotten hot in here, or was I back into my feverish human body?
“I…I’m not…master?—”
“Let him speak, my lord. How can he defend himself if you won’t let him…?” Hypnos trailed off when Hades glared.
“Fine.” He pulled away, and Thanatos collapsed to the floor, coughing.
Could the god of death die from asphyxiation? Could he die of anything?
“Speak!”
“I…I don’t know…what you’re…” Thanatos rasped.
“You are the god of death. You expect me to believe you had no hand in killing my queen— your queen—and that you don’t know what happened?”
I circled around Hades, and inevitably, Thanatos looked at me, but before Hades could punish him for it, I put a hand on his shoulder and waited for Thanatos’ response.
“Ye-yes, my lord. I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill our queen.”
It was really starting to annoy me how they kept referring to me as queen. And it wasn’t just because they were wrong about who I was.
“I wasn’t even in the vicinity when it happened. Hypnos can vouch?—”
“Hypnos can do nothing of the sort. And why should I believe you anyway?”
“We were at a party, my lord. With all the other gods,” Hypnos said.
“What?” Hades snarled.
“Yes. We weren’t working. They can all verify our…presence.”
Hades looked from Hypnos to Thanatos, who shrugged and nodded at his lord.
Hades spat. “Forsaken chaos! Then who killed him? Huh? Who? No other god of death would dare touch someone under my protection.”
“We don’t know, my lord,” Thanatos offered before he turned to me and sighed. “We don’t know.”
Yup. Just as I thought.
I was doomed.
My death would stick, and I was never coming back to life.
“Get out of here, you useless pieces of shit.”
Hypnos grabbed Thanatos in a rush, and they both shimmered away, staring at their master in fear, leaving us alone yet again just as the sun spilled through the windows, giving light and definition to the destruction inside my bedroom.
But even that couldn’t add the color back into my gray body.