Chapter 22 – Lamia #2
Darius places a warm hand on my shoulder. “Congratulations,” he says, smiling.
The air between us changes in the best possible way. Like a weight has dropped from our shoulders. We’re one step closer to our goals, and I was able to help.
I smile back. “We did it.”
“Ma’am?” a strange voice says with authority.
We all turn at once. Behind us, two security guards stand, their hands folded before them.
“Can you come with us?” one of them says.
I rise, my legs feel shaky. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Not at all. You just need to trade in your winnings for your prize.”
“My prize?”
“They’ll explain it,” the security guard says. “It’s just our job to bring you to them.”
I look to my men.
Ryker draws himself up taller, even though he doesn’t need to. “We’ll come with her.”
The security guard shakes his head. “Only the winner can go.”
“No,” Ryker says, and there’s no room for argument.
“Then you’ll have to give up your winnings and leave without the prize.”
The guard’s words send ice running down my spine. “No, I can go.”
“Lamia,” Ryker says, his voice soft but tense.
“I have to do this,” I tell him.
Once we deal with the humans, we’ll be free to go. We’ll have the next item on our list, and I’ll be one step closer to being back with my children.
Moving away from my gargoyles, I come to stand in front of the guards. I can feel the guys watching me with concern, but I try not to look back at them. To show any fear.
“Let’s get my prize,” I say, forcing a smile.
The guards turn, and I follow behind them, heading for the elevators. When we stop before the doors, and they chime and open, I finally look back at the gargoyles.
They’re watching me closely, and even from afar I can sense that they have no plans of letting me out of their sight for long. Which is good. Because I kind of like being in their company.
One guard swipes a card when we get into the elevator, and hits the button for the top floor.
I hold myself tensely between them, my fingers sweaty as they clench the chip.
When we finally come out of the elevator, we’re on a floor with only one door. They knock softly when we reach it. A man opens the door a crack.
“We brought the winner of the heart machine.”
The man at the door opens it a little wider. “Why didn’t you say so? Come right in!”
The guards step forward, and the man moves to block their entrance. “I meant her. You two have done your job.”
They instantly go back to the elevator and climb in, and the doors shut behind them. I’m left alone in the hall staring at the short man with graying hair, who gazes at me intently.
“Well,” he says. “What are you waiting for?”
Taking a deep breath, I walk into the apartment.
Behind me, I hear the locks click into place.
The man at the door leads me down an extravagant hallway lined with stunning artwork.
When the hallway ends, opening up into a big room, the man steps out of my path and retreats in the direction he came from.
I hear the door close again, signaling he’s left me here. But why?
I look out at the room, and my stomach flips. Seven men sit at a poker table in one corner, near the wall-to-wall windows that look out at the bright city. Only, these men aren’t human. If I were to bet, I’d say they were demi-gods.
They have the strange unearthly glow of the gods, but they’re hideous men. Mixing human and god DNA rarely brings about attractive people. Usually they’re twisted on the outside and the inside.
My pulse races. Is this a trap, or is this where I was meant to be?
“Lamia,” one of the men greets.
My gaze moves to him. His skin is pale with a yellow tint, and his eyes are small and deeply set beside a nose that’s far too big for his face. Wisps of hair grow from his chin and around his mouth, an almost-beard that looks dirty and unkempt.
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
He smiles, but it’s not a friendly smile. “I heard you were a sniveling creature. Whining about your curse. Wasting your semi-immortal life crying for your human family. I’m glad to see I was wrong.”
This is definitely not good. I need to get out of here as fast as I can.
My spine is rigid. “What do you want?”
“Want?” he repeats. “What an interesting question. I want to win my bet against the other gods. I want to show them that you are destined for nothing. But I’ve always considered myself a fair man, so perhaps we can make a little bet ourselves.”
My throat feels dry. “I think I’ll just be on my way.”
Turning, I stare in surprise. Shades guard the door. Women with darkness surrounding them like deep shadows and eyes that sparkle with a purple light. They’re Hades’s beasts. Sent to drag mortals who commit violent crimes to the Underworld.
“What are they doing here?”
The man’s voice is filled with humor. “Hades has commanded them that should you try to leave, they’re to drag you to the Underworld where you’ll spend the rest of your eternity being tortured for the sins you committed in this world.
Perhaps you’ll spend eternity waking and killing your husband and children over and over again each day? That would be fitting, right?”
My head feels light. “You’re a sick mother fucker.”
When I look back to him, his smile is gone. “My mother is the beautiful Hera herself. Who could possibly resist fucking her?”
I stare, hoping I misunderstood him. “That’s disgusting.”
He glares. “I’d expect as much from a woman who slept with the unfaithful Zeus.”
And suddenly, I know. This is the one child Hera bore that was not a child of Zeus. “You’re Typhon.”
He smiles. “I am.”
“The son who Hera gave to snakes to raise. A son she had as revenge against her husband, and a son she later regretted having.”
Anger leaps into his eyes.
“Should we kill her?” another gnarly looking demi-god hisses at his side.
Typhon shakes his head slowly, but holds my gaze. “Show her the table.”
Behind me, I hear the Shades laughing.
The demi-god rises from his spot beside the poker table and limps across the room to a table that’s covered by a sheet not far from me. I hold myself tensely, feeling the hairs on my arms stand on end. A table covered by a cloth…that can’t be a good thing.
The demi-god smiles, flashing razor-sharp teeth, then pulls back the sheet.
My gaze goes to the table, and I gasp. On it are various tools of torture. A mermaid tail. A unicorn horn. And the wings of a fairy.
“You’re not the first one to bet with us,” Typhon says. “You’re just the first one to win the golden chip.”
My heart races. “You guys are sick.”
The table full of men laugh, and the strange sounds of the Shades laughing too comes from behind me.
“So, you see,” Typhon says, with far too much humor. “I have a collection of sorts. Do you notice what’s not in the collection? The tail of the pathetic Lamia. Don’t you think it’d go nicely with the rest?”
“You’re not getting my tail,” I say.
He smiles again. “Then I guess you have no choice but to play our little game.”
Anger bubbles inside of me. “Isn’t it enough your bitch of a mother did this to me?
Now you’ve got to step in and make things worse.
” His eyes widen in shock. “And you want to know something else, guys with big dicks who get laid don’t go around chopping parts off women.
Men like you are what women refer to as sexually frustrated psychopaths. ”
One of the men growls.
“Clever,” Typhon grates out. “Let’s see how clever she is when we’re done with her.”
But I don’t back down. “Let’s play your fucking game.”
His brows rise in surprise.
“Did you expect me to be scared?” I say. I lean in slightly and lower my voice. “Ever seen what happens to an idiot who steps between a mother bear and her cubs?” I smile. “Right now, you’re all those idiots, so let’s see what happens, huh?”
Two of the men exchange a glance.
One looks at Typhon. “Actually, I was thinking I might head out and—“
Typhon’s head suddenly splits into a dozen long snakes as he turns toward the other demi-god.
The snakes snap forward, biting the man.
He screams and the snakes attack over and over again, until the man collapses onto the floor.
The snakes look back at me, a hundred multicolored beasts, covered in blood.
Slowly, they melt back into the demi-gods face. Only now, he’s covered in blood.
“One poker game,” he says, softly. “One hand. If you win, you take the chip and leave with your life. If any of us wins, you forfeit the chip and your tail. Those are the terms.”
“If I have no choice—“
“None,” he says.
I shrug, not telling them I have no idea how to play poker. “Then let’s start.”
He kicks out the chair his friend was sitting at. His friend who now lies in a pool of blood on the ground. A man who will probably be hurting for some time when he regains consciousness.
I move around the table, to a spot where I’m facing the window.
Typhon begins to shuffle the cards.
My entire body feels tense and achy. I don’t know how to play this game, or how to win it. But I have to. For my children.
Cards are placed in front of us. Everyone picks their cards up and stares at them, but I leave mine on the table.
Typhon frowns. “Aren’t you going to look at your cards?”
I try to smile confidently. “No, because I’m already certain I won.”
More cards are passed out. The men continue to glance at my untouched cards with nervousness.
At last, Typhon glares at me and says. “Show them.”
I do.
His smile widens. “I have a flush. And you? You have nothing.”
I don’t blink an eye. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not,” he says.
I stand, staring at them. Ready to fight. I picture my children’s sweet faces, and I tell myself that for the first time their lucky I’m a monster, because this monster isn’t going to let herself be ripped into pieces, nor will I let them take the chip in my hand.
They’ll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.
“You can’t really be considering fighting us?” Typhon says, his voice filled with humor. “Shades!” he calls. “Kill her.”
I tense, ready for the fight of my life.
The Shades are somewhere down the hall one minute, and the next they stand at the edge of the room. The same one who spoke before smiles.
My hands curl into fists.
“Hades commanded that we not allow her to leave until the bet was made. He said nothing about doing your job.”
“Bitch!” he growls.
She smiles. “We like blood and death. We don’t really care how it happens.”
I smirk at Typhon. “What are you going to do now that you can’t get women to fight your battle for you?”
He and his men rise from the table. “I guess see just how painful we can make your death.”
I don’t move. I don’t blink. I just wait, ready to fight for my children. Ready to show these men that it was a mistake to stand between me and the people I love.
Even though the odds are stacked against me, somehow, I know I’ll succeed.
For them.