Chapter Twenty
Twenty
The Eleusinian Mysteries refer to a secret and sacred rite of initiation for the followers of the Cult of Persephone.
This may seem random, and I know it comes at a bad time, but I have a point, if you’ll stick with me.
Each year, the Cult would gather for ten days during the late summer. They would perform some rites, have a festival, and then, on the third day, begin a procession from the Athenian cemetery to Eleusis, waving branches, shouting obscenities, and making dirty jokes. Sounds like my kind of party.
Once in Eleusis, you’ve got an all-night vigil, some more sacred rites, a few plays. Then, on the final night, they…
Well, scholars don’t know what happened on the final night because anyone who even hinted at the secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries was swiftly murdered. They just know it had something to do with life after death and a drink, which many believe contained some kind of psychoactive drug.
The truth that scholars don’t know is that Persephone was one of the first people to access the Afterlife. By drinking a mixture of barley and a type of fungus that brought her body so close to death, her soul was temporarily tricked across the veil.
Once she returned to her body, she became aware of the magic she brought with her. So she made trip after trip until she became immortal and godlike. And so did many others. Hecate, Thanatos, all the other Titans. They all developed followers and shared their secrets with those they held close.
I know what you’re thinking: But none of the syndicates are run by Persephone.
No, they’re not. Not all the Titans survived to modernity. In fact, Persephone died so long ago, she’s been relegated to the status of legend, even among syndicates and heaven hoppers, leaving us with one final mystery.
If all the Titans knew the secret of the Afterlife, then what was Persephone revealing to her followers during the Eleusinian Mysteries that they had to keep so hush-hush? What was so arcane and volatile that it led to her death and the fall of her Cult?
And why don’t the syndicates want anybody to know about it?
When you’re falling, you’re supposed to protect your head at all costs, even at the expense of other body parts. Landing on your feet protects everything necessary, but you’ll probably shatter both your legs.
I would like to avoid that.
I have less than a second to act, so I release the demon as soon as we start to fall, twisting my body and kicking away to aim for the display case. It’ll lessen the fall by about five feet and absorb some of the impact. I remember that’s it’s made of glass a second too late.
Shit.
Well, here goes.
I tuck my chin, keep my arms by my face, and brace myself.
This was such a bad idea.
My left shoulder takes the hit, pain spiking through me. I roll with the momentum to distribute the impact, glass shattering beneath me as I tumble off the podium and onto the floor.
The breath leaves me, and I think I lose consciousness for a moment. The next thing I know, I’m on my back, several feet away from the smashed display case. Every part of my body hurts, but the pain in my left side is unbearable.
Someone is calling my name, and I know I have to stand. The demon won’t be as affected by the fall as I am, and I have to fight.
Problem is I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding out.
My eyes drift to the statue and find the demon draped across Hercules’s arms, like some kind of irreverent Madonna della Pietà. It doesn’t move, pierced through by the overly phallic club.
I chuckle to myself, and then everything goes black.
When I come to, everything is numb, but at least the pain is gone. I know there’s some reason I should be panicking, but my brain is too fuzzy to remember why.
Until I open my eyes and find myself face-to-face with Secretary of Health and senior member of the Reapers, Adam Waring. Again.
“Finally,” he says, unblinking amber eyes fixed on me. “You’re back with us.”
I jolt to get away, but I’m tied down to what looks like a hospital bed. I’m in no hospital, though. Judging by the decor, I’m guessing I’m still in the museum.
I quickly try to take stock of what happened. Waring said “finally,” so I’ve been out for quite some time. He also said “us,” meaning he’s not the only person in the room. And I’m still in the Getty Villa, so Hecate’s probably here. My head is strapped down, so I can’t look around to check.
Which brings me to the most unsettling part of all this: My head is strapped down.
If they just wanted to keep me prisoner, they only had to handcuff me to the bed.
Without tools, my only escape would be to break my thumb, but since Waring can transmute matter, he could fix the bone before I even had a chance to slip free.
But both my arms are strapped down, my head, and—hold on, just wiggling my feet to check—yup, my legs too.
Which means they don’t want me to thrash.
Which means they’re anticipating me trying to thrash.
I take a deep breath.
“Glad I’m awake so you can start your torture?” My voice is hoarse, and it warbles because, I’m not too proud to admit, I’m terrified.
As always, Waring is in a bland but well-tailored suit, with a gelled side part and a shave so clean his bronze skin looks waxy.
“I’d just like to have a conversation,” he says, then smiles. “Although some of my colleagues in the Cabinet would say my conversation is torture, I’m hoping you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”
I huff. “I’d be more interested if you didn’t have me strapped to a table.”
He looks at me thoughtfully. “Well, technically, it’s a gurney.”
I blink, suddenly remembering I should have a whole host of injuries. Broken bones. Probably glass embedded in my spine. At the very least a concussion. But I don’t feel injured. In fact, I don’t feel anything at all.
Waring must see the panic in my eyes, because he lays a hand on my forearm. “Healing can be quite painful, so I’ve temporarily blocked most of your nerve endings. Your life-threatening injuries have already been taken care of. All that’s left is to pop your shoulder back in.”
I can only watch out of the corner of my eye as he passes his hand over my left shoulder, chanting something low in a language I don’t understand. There’s an intense pressure, then a pop and a squelch.
“There,” Waring says, voice soft. “All done. Now, once I restore sensation, you will feel some pain, but it should be manageable.”
He hovers his hands above my head, chanting. This spell is different but no less incomprehensible. As he passes his hands down my body, the numbness fades and is replaced by a pain that is “manageable” in the loosest definition of the word.
I let out a groan.
Waring sits back into a chair, legs crossed, and watches me with an unsettling gaze.
“Well?” I prompt.
Obviously, the healing was a means to an end. I’m guessing this is going to be some kind of interrogation. I wonder if the others are in separate rooms, but I know better than to ask. Best to pretend I acted alone just in case everyone else got away.
Waring smiles. “I suppose I’ll cut right to the chase. We know you were after the grimoire.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I ask. If we’re going to do this, I need to see who I’m facing.
He stares at me for a moment longer, then nods to someone behind him. Hecate comes into view.
See? I was right.
But then CJ’s great-aunt Thea appears beside her, wheeling over a stand with a laptop on it. On the screen are two people. One is a thin dark-skinned woman and the other kind of looks like Danny DeVito. I’m guessing representatives from the remaining syndicates: the Nightshades and the Ferrymen.
“You’ve got the whole gang together,” I croak.
Waring smirks but in the most likable way ever. I think I hate him.
“I know it’s unusual,” he says, “seeing us all here at once. But the syndicates have worked together in the past, and that’s actually what we want to talk to you about.”
I clear my throat. “I’d be more willing to talk if I weren’t restrained.”
“You misunderstand. We’ll be doing the talking. All you have to do is listen.” He pulls his chair closer to me, sitting forward so he’s more in my line of sight. “Tell me what you know about the Cult of Hades.”
I don’t respond. It’s silent for a moment. Waring raises one eyebrow.
“I thought all I had to do was listen.”
Truth is, I don’t know anything about the Cult of Hades. I’ve never even heard of them. I just assumed Hades was one of those myths that none of the Titans fashioned themself after. Either that or whatever syndicate he ruled had become obsolete, like Persephone’s or Alecto’s.
Waring tilts his head. “The demon you so pulchritudinously impaled is part of the Cult, who are now trying to use the grimoire to resurrect Hades.”
I don’t let my surprise show, even though too much information was just thrown at me. Hades is real. Hades is dead. And pulchritudinous is a word.
“Okay?”
The less impressed I sound, the more information I’m likely to get as Waring tries to prove to me this is something worth talking about.
He laughs softly. “The last time the syndicates worked together, it was—”
“Tell her about the—” A voice cuts in. “Sorry, I was muted. Tell her about the banishment.”
Waring sighs and looks over at the laptop screen, where the man on the screen is leaning toward the camera, so all we can see is one eye and his nose.
“Gotta trim those nose hairs,” I say.
“This girl has some sass,” he fires back.
“I’ve got this, Chuck.” Waring’s voice is weary.
“Sorry, Mr. DeVito,” I mumble.
Waring turns back to me. “The last time the syndicates worked together, it was to banish Hades’s soul to the farthest reaches of the Afterlife. Now we’re—”
“Hades was a real asshole,” Chuck—I guess?—cuts in again. “The rest of us are all minding our own business, but Hades had to—”
“Chuck,” Waring says.
“Sorry, yeah, go ahead.”
Waring pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’re now working together to keep the Cult of Hades from bringing him back from the Afterlife.”