Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
THANATOS
Time moves differently when every second feels like agony.
Drawing breath only reminded me of the constant ache in my chest. Yet the anticipation of what could be kept me going.
I’d tried to allow Anastasia to live her life without my interference, yet I couldn’t help but watch her in my spare moments.
But they were few and far between now, and I longed for the moment when I could simply speak with her.
“Am I dead?” My eyes snapped down, refocusing on the task at hand.
A young soul stood next to me in his ghostly form. His body lay on the ground at our feet in the middle of the street. A crowd began to gather around as a passerby dropped to their knees and started performing CPR on the young man.
“Yes, you no longer belong to the world of the living.” I kept my voice soft and even. Though I had my own troubles, I couldn’t neglect the souls. They needed to pass from the world of the living to that of the dead. It was my job to do so, and I would force myself to do it.
“Why? How?” He threw his arms out as a car sped down the street toward us. “Yo! Stop.”
But it passed right through us. In the distance, sirens sounded, and I knew the paramedics would soon arrive. But there was nothing more to be done. He was dead and there was no reversing it. “Come.”
“What do you mean come? I’m lying in the street, man! Come on! Help me!” He stood over himself. “I’m bleeding here.”
“There is nothing more to be done.” I wanted to feel for him, for his life being cut so tragically short, but it only made me realize how many times Anastasia’s life had been cut as equally short.
“Oh God. I’m dead. Oh God!” He paced back and forth, then tried to kick the mangled bike he’d been riding. When his leg passed right through it, he wailed even louder. “Oh, mannnnnn. I hated being a messenger and now look! It got me killed!”
“You need to calm yourself.”
“Calm myself? Bro, I am dead. How can you be so calm? Just standing there looking at me all dead in the street. Do something.”
“I am doing something. I am making sure you get to the Underworld where you belong.” I paused and caught his eye. “Death is not the end.”
“Man, that’s some fortune cookie type bullshit.” He threw his arms out in annoyance and groaned.
I gave a heavy sigh. I didn’t have time to convince him he’d be fine or that the transition would be easy.
I’d seen Anastasia struggle with it time and again.
There was nothing easy about death. But then what was easy about life?
I waved my hand and let my power flow over the two of us.
Black and blue sparks covered me and then wrapped around him.
He looked down at himself. “Hey! Whoa, no, what’s happening? Stop. I’m not ready.”
Surrounded by my power, we faded from the street, slowly drifting down toward the Underworld. It was a trip that I’d made a thousand times, yet it never got old with each new soul I collected. The one next to me pouted. “You could’ve let me say goodbye.”
“Goodbye to whom? You were lying in the street.”
He made a sound of annoyance. “Goodbye to the sun, the sky, the fresh, crisp air. It was spring . . . the flowers. The bright thrill that is life.”
“I have no idea of what you speak.” How did one say goodbye to the sun?
“Yeah, of course you don’t,” he growled in my direction. “Anyone ever tell you that you suck at this?”
“No, I have yet to receive that review.”
“Well, consider me your first, man.” He crossed his arms over his chest just as we landed at the edge of the Underworld.
“The journey will give you time to adjust.” I motioned toward the winding river that traveled through the Underworld.
The soul’s eyes widened, and his jaw went slack.
The Underworld was always something to see.
Hades’ castle stood tall and imposing at the center of it all.
It was made of the darkest onyx yet somehow gleamed in the darkness.
In the distance, the burning flames and flowing lava from Tartarus glowed a warm, brilliant orange color.
It was where the souls of the damned were sent for their own personal punishments.
To the side of that were the Elysian fields, full of the most beautiful golden wheat.
It was where all the souls who tried to be good in their lives dwelled.
Soft music drifted on the breeze from Elysium as golden light glittered from it.
Beyond that lingered the fields of Asphodel, a vast wasteland where souls lingered completely alone.
Those that went there were neither good nor bad, but they were lost to the heavy gray fog that settled over those fields and made its inhabitants feel completely isolated.
It was those fields that forced me to continually steal Anastasia’s soul away from here.
Several rivers flowed in and around the Underworld.
Each one was navigated by the Ferryman, who would ferry the newly passed souls to the line of judgement.
The process was simple: the souls would travel with the Ferryman through the Underworld toward the judges, where they would then be sent to their appropriate afterlife.
I’d only let Anastasia get to the judges one time before.
From then on I had stolen her away to stay with me until her next life.
It wasn’t how things were done, but it was what I would do for her.
“Are you serious right now?” He motioned toward the ship that drifted to a stop on the riverbank just beside us.
It was much larger than a rowboat and was made of aged wood that creaked and groaned with every bob.
Water sloshed against the hull of the ship, making it rock back and forth where it stood.
The Ferryman stood tall and imposing on the deck of the ship, with his long wooden staff at the ready.
A long black cloak covered his skeletal body and face from the souls waiting on the riverbank.
“I am indeed serious.”
The soul motioned to the Ferryman. “You want me to get on a boat with holes in it with a dude who looks like the Grim Reaper? Nah, I’m not about that life.”
“Then, good thing you’re dead.” I nodded in greeting toward the Ferryman.
“Damn, man, why you gotta put it like that?” He sighed. “I just . . . I just don’t wanna be dead.”
“I think you will find no one makes this transition by choice, and yet we all must.” Even now the words tasted sour on my tongue. I forced everyone else to make this journey, everyone but Anastasia.
“Great advice.” He stomped away from me toward the line of waiting souls.
I shook my head. Well, that could’ve gone better.
I closed my eyes and let my power flow over my body, expecting to move to my next soul, but something overcame me.
Something much more powerful than the pull of a soul.
My body was covered in another’s power, and I was pulled from the riverbank deeper into the Underworld.
Everything spun by in a blur. I lost my bearings, dizziness overcame me, and I found myself reaching out for something to hold on to, though there was nothing.
I came to a jolting stop in Hades’ office.
I pressed my hand to my chest and sucked in a few steadying breaths.
He’d never done that to me before, and I wasn’t accustomed to another god using their powers on me.
When I spotted the door at the back of his office standing wide open with glittering light flooding from it, a sense of dread started to grow.
“In here,” Hades’ deep voice rumbled from beyond the door.
I sucked in a breath and moved toward the door. When I entered, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Hades stood there holding threads of souls in each of his palms. They turned from gleaming gold to deep purple. My eyes widened at the sight. “You summoned me?”
“I did.” He didn’t bother to look at me. He just kept touching the threads that fell into his waiting palm.
“Should you be doing that?”
He paused and turned toward me with that uncanny violet gaze. “I feel like you should be asking yourself the same question.”
“Excuse me?” I didn’t know where this was going, but that feeling of dread settled deeper into my stomach.
He dusted his hands off and turned his attention to me fully. “You’re slipping.”
“What do you mean slipping?” I shook my head.
“You’ve been late to escort souls. You’ve dropped them off at the wrong location, and the furies are not pleased with the rate you are moving. You’ve caused a backlog of souls that need to be punished. What have you to say for yourself?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
Here we were standing in a pure white room with the souls of the living gliding over our heads. Souls he seemed to be messing with and he was scolding me for not doing my job. “I’ve done my job.”
“Barely.”
“None have gone missing,” I countered. Yes, I was going through the motions of it, just trying to get through each of my days, but I had completed my job.
“Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” He glared at me. “Silly of me to let you have your fun, but now your obsession is messing with my Underworld, and we can’t have that.”
My blood ran cold. He couldn’t have known. No, there was no way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Heat flooded his cheeks and the muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t you? You think that I don’t know everything going on in my Underworld? Do you think I wouldn’t miss the same soul missing from my ranks? You think me such a poor leader not to notice something like that”
“I think no such thing.” I was completely taken back. How could he have known? My heart raced in my chest, and I tried to search for the words to deny what I’d done. But how could I? I couldn’t. Not when I was faced with the blatant truth.
“We’ve all broken the rules, Thanatos. Remember that time with Persephone?” He sighed and shook his head. “It was ages ago but it caused quite the ruckus.”
“Well, kidnapping will do that.”
He straightened his stance and narrowed his eyes at me. “And what do you call what you’re doing with the human?”
“It is not kidnapping. She wants to come with me.” I had to dig the words deep from within my soul.
I’d tried to keep her hidden from Hades, tried to hide the fact that I’d taken her and reincarnated her in an effort to let her earn her way into Elysium.
In Elysium I could be with her and spend all my spare time living in her light.
But I was barred from Tartarus for good reason and the fields of Asphodel were a miserable abyss that I was also banned from.
It was silent and lonely. Anastasia deserved so much more . . . We deserved so much more.
“You will give her up now.”
No. I will never give her up. “Why must I?”
He scoffed. “She is human.”
“So?” I’d had this argument a thousand times in my head, and now it was finally out. Some of the pressure lifted off my chest. I didn’t like keeping this secret from Hades.
“So, a human and a god can never be.” He jabbed a finger in my direction. “You must let her go. It is the way of life and the way of the fates. Do you want to anger those three?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. It’s just that . . . well . . . I love her.”
“You love her?” He ran his hand through his hair. “You honestly can’t make this shit up. You . . . love . . . a human? But they’re so, so breakable.”
A humorless laugh burst from my chest. “I am well aware.”
“And yours seems hell bent on dying young each time.” He stepped in closer to me. “It is not meant to be.”
I couldn’t believe that. No two souls were more in sync than mine and Anastasia’s. We were a perfect pairing. “It will be.”
“You will let her go.” His voice lowered to a growl.
I ground my teeth together. “I will not. I will have her. I deserve her.”
“You what?” He motioned to the room and the ceiling with the threads of life running across them. “Take a look around you. No one gets what they think they deserve. We are all here existing in a world created to teach us lessons. Perhaps your lesson is to learn love and loss.”
My hands curled into fists at my side. “I know loss. Above all others, I am familiar with loss.”
“Then that is the way of things.”
“It is not the way!” I snapped. I pressed my fist to my chest. “Can you not see this has been pressing on me in such a way that I can barely breathe without her. So, no. It is not the way. I refuse to see this as the way.”
“You can’t fight fate.”
“I wi—”
“Enough,” Hades cut me off. “You cannot challenge fate like this. They will not only smite you, they will punish you.”
I cleared my throat trying to regain control over my raw emotions. “I don’t care anymore.”
“Well I do.” He sighed. “The next time Anastasia passes, I will be the one collecting her soul, and I will be the one to bring her to the judges.”
I froze. “You can’t.”
He lifted his arms, motioning to the threads of life. “Oh, I can and I will. You are no longer entrusted to her. I am watching closely, Thanatos. You will stay away from her or there will be consequences.”
Damn your consequences. “Very well.”
“Good. Now that’s settled.” He lifted his hand, resuming his task. “Care to help me?”
“I’m pretty sure you should not be doing that.” I took liberties with Anastasia, but I wouldn’t with these other souls. If he thought he could take her from me, he thought wrong. I would never give her up. We would find our way back to each other one way or another.
Hades chuckled. “And I’m pretty sure I don’t give a fuck.”