10. Persephone
Persephone
The snake's head reared back as I got close and it hissed, a purple forked tongue flicking from its mouth.
A frisson of fear skittered through me but I swam on, covering myself with the rusted shield.
I swam high over the snake, staying well out of reach of its head as I got over the top of the box.
I squinted down, scanning for anything that looked out of place and my gaze snagged on a leather-bound book that had a bright orange cover, just visible under a few of the others. Orange like the snake. Was that a clue?
Steeling myself, I focused on the book and tipped my body in the water, so that I was pointing head-first at the box. Raising the shield I took a deep breath, and darted downward.
The snake went for me the second I was within its range, hitting the shield with such force that I rolled hard through the water. Gasping, I tried to angle myself down, sending a million silent thanks to the gods that the ancient shield had held.
I felt water swoosh past me as I frantically reached into the box, lifting my shield arm around my back to protect myself. Shoving other books aside, I managed to close my fingers around the bound edge of the orange book just before something slammed into the back of my legs.
I crashed hard into the crate, hitting my chin on a mercifully squishy book, the impact of the shield hitting the wooden sides of the box sending shockwaves through my arm.
I rolled as best I could, still clutching the book, and saw the end of the snake’s glowing tail coming for me just in time to bring the shield around to block it.
There was another hissing sound, and adrenaline sent a surge of strength through my legs. I tucked them under myself and pushed hard against the side of the box, launching myself up and out of reach of the snake.
I wasn't fast enough though. I felt searing hot pain in my ankle as I kicked furiously, and looked down to see the creatures jaws wide open beneath me, red blood on the end of one of its fangs. My blood.
Praying it wasn't a venomous snake, I bolted towards the door and Buddy, trying to shake the heavy shield off my arm as my heart hammered in my chest.
“Let's go!” I called to the hippocampus as I shot straight past his rocking body, back through the doorway and as far away from the hissing neon snake as I could get.
Once I was back in the gloomy main hall, I whirled, raising the shield still stuck on my arm, but mercifully only Buddy had followed me out of the room.
Grimacing, I managed to get my arm free from the shield straps and gripped the book with both hands, treading water and trying to ignore the pain spreading up my calf. If this was just a normal, boring book I was going to lose my shit.
I opened it, holding my breath.
There, glowing bright with every color of the ocean, was a wide, flat gem, nestled in a hollow cut out of the book’s pages. Relief washed through me, and I grabbed it triumphantly, dropping the book onto the floor.
“Nailed it,” I told Buddy, allowing myself a smile as I held up the gorgeous stone to show him.
A pulse of pain from my leg transformed my smile swiftly into a scowl though.
I lifted my knee to my chest in the water and twisted my leg, so that I could get a good look at the wound the snake had given me.
It was a small cut, but it was shining with blood and was giving off a faint orange glow.
Shit. That did not look normal. I could heal though, right? As I tried to feel for my powers a wave of fatigue came over me, and I didn't know if it was from my physical encounter with the snake, or something worse. Like venom.
Putting the gem carefully into my pocket I kicked myself over to Buddy and wrestled my feet into his stirrups.
It felt good to rest my legs as I sat down on his cold back, and I sagged a little, the adrenaline from both the terrifying pitch black room and my face off with the snake starting to ebb away.
“Let's see if I can use these damn powers,” I muttered, and closed my eyes, concentrating on the feeling I'd had in the conservatory.
After a full minute of trying, all I could feel was a pathetic tingle somewhere in my chest, and I was fairly certain I wasn't healing myself. My ankle still throbbed painfully.
“Fine. I give up. Let's get this over with,” I snapped, opening my eyes and patting Buddy on the neck. We bobbed together in the water as he whinnied. The best thing I could do was to finish the Trial, then get help.
A piercing screech from outside echoed through the chamber and I gritted my teeth, feeling my pulse spike as I mentally geared up for what was coming next.
“Alright, alright, I'm going!” I yelled and directed Buddy towards the cracked columns at the front of the temple, and whatever it was that making that awful sound.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I breathed as we left the sinking building and emerged into the bright blue ocean.
The thing between me and the trident statue made the sea snake look positively tame.
My skin crawled as I stared, every part of my mind telling me to turn and run, and for the sake of the gods, don't turn back.
The center of the clearing was now a swirling mass of sand, as though there was a whirlpool embedded into the ocean floor.
And emerging from it like some sort of worm from a hole was the most hideous creature I'd ever seen.
It was the same shape and color as a worm, but it was as wide as a house, and its head.
.. Its whole head was a mouth. Needle-sharp teeth ringed its circular jaw, and huge claw-like black horns circled the outside of its head.
Its skin was repulsive looking, cracked and rotten and leathery, and big drops of something the color of blood flicked out from it as it rolled and flailed through the water.
It was about twenty feet out of the churning sand and I realized as the hippocampus reared back suddenly, that I was only just out of its reach.
“Now you face Charybdis!” boomed Poseidon's voice, and the creature screeched on hearing its name.
A surge of adrenaline wiped away the pain from my leg and the initial paralysis at seeing something so alien. My vision focused sharply, and I reached down to Buddy, who was vibrating with fear beneath me.
“I need your help, Buddy. We're way faster than this thing,” I told him, loading my voice with a confidence I prayed I could back up. “But we need to go right now, before that thing gets out any further out of the sand. Go!”
The hippocampus burst to life, zooming up and over Charybdis so fast I could feel the skin on my face pulling against the force of the water. I glanced down as we soared over the monster, a flurry of excitement building inside me. We were doing it. We would reach the trident statue in no time.
But my breath caught and the excitement sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach the very next second.
The thing was dropping back down into its hole, its massive round mouth forming the epicenter of the sand-whirlpool below me, and a jet of water blasted up from it, slamming into us and freezing Buddy's progress completely.
He squealed beneath me, and panic flooded my system as I looked down and saw a second layer of razor sharp of teeth slice out under Charybdis’ first set, jagged and stained and as big as I was. We were trapped in the beam of water, and like quicksand, it was sucking us downward.
“You can do it!” I urged the hippocampus, my heart hammering as I looked up at the trident statue. But he couldn't. Slowly and inexorably, we were being dragged towards the creature’s terrifying maw.
I looked desperately between the trident and Charybdis, sand and ocean water swirling faster and faster around us. Buddy was moving backwards now, his frantic tail unable to keep beating at such a fast pace against the mighty pull of the monster.
I felt utterly useless sitting on his back, but if he couldn't break free of the whirlpool’s force, there was no way I could.
I needed to do something else. Something that wasn't swimming. Whatever it was that I did best.
I fixed my sights on the center spike of the trident, and concentrated hard on Poseidon.
I thought of what he had said to me, how he blamed me for being here, for posing a threat to Olympus.
I thought about the way Eris had treated me at the masquerade ball, patronizing and cruel.
I thought about Zeus, and his fucked up, inflated sense of entitlement and the shit he was putting Hades through.
Black vines burst from my palms, and a feeling like electricity burned through my entire body. There was no fear this time, no terror of what was happening. This time I was in control. This time I wanted the vines.
I launched them at the trident, bone-deep strength filling my body to the brim as I sent them snaking further through the water to wrap around the central spike.
Buddy squealed again and I snapped my attention down, dimly noticing that my arms were glowing green.
We were too close.
Charybdis was only ten feet below us, and a tremor of fear shuddered through my new found strength as I looked down past those insanely sharp teeth, into the black, rotten gullet of the beast.
No fucking way was I going down there.
I pulled hard on the vines, willing them to hold, willing them to be stronger than the whirlpool.
They were.
I cried out in pain as my wrists were yanked up hard, both of them making an awful snapping sound as we shot up through the sea. I squeezed my legs tightly around Buddy as we were dragged higher, tears streaming from eyes I couldn't keep open against the powerful flow of water.
I didn't see the trident until it was too late, Buddy and I slamming into the cold marble.
The pain in my wrists was so excruciating that I hardly noticed though, and I struggled to get my bearings as I belatedly realized we had come to a stop. I heard that hideous screech again and shook my head, blinking.
Buddy tipped me forward with a whinny, so that I was looking down, and through my haze I saw Charybdis launching himself up from his hole.
The sight was all I needed to snap back into action. I shoved my hand into my pocket, noticing first that the vines had gone, then yelling involuntarily at the pain. Gasping through the agony, I withdrew the gem. I had seconds before the beast reached us.
“Go!” I urged the hippocampus, and we pelted up, towards the tip of the central spike, the only one missing a gleaming blue gem.
Heat engulfed us and I knew it was Charybdis' rotten breath as the light around us faded.
His huge teeth moved into my peripheral vision as he reached us, and adrenaline flooded my body.
This was it. Now or never.
I screamed as I launched myself up from Buddy's back and slammed the gem into the empty recess, and the ring of teeth began to close around us.