Hades stalked to the door, following after his streams of smoke. The vines were gold, and they only grew about ten inches, but a light seemed to emanate from them, and the blood and the screams died away.
'Well done, vines,' I muttered, and hurried after Hades.
He had stopped in the doorway, and was standing frozen, still pulsing with blue light and dark smoke. I ducked under his arm and stepped out into the corridor. There, against the rocky wall, was a huge broken mirror. I frowned as I looked into it. I couldn't see Hades behind me. Just my own reflection, skin flushed and silky nightwear disheveled, the image distorted by the many cracks.
'What-' I started to ask, but my words caught in my throat. I was bleeding. Scarlet red blood was seeping from my reflection’s eyes. Nausea rose in my gut and my hands flew to my face, my vines brushing my cheeks as I touched them. I looked down at my fingers. There was nothing. But... When I looked back at my reflection it wasn't just my eyes that were bleeding. Blood poured from me, my skin cracking like the glass in front of me, the thick ooze gushing onto the floor.
Words began to appear across the mirror. 'You will drown in the river of blood you created.'
I stumbled backwards, starting when I hit something ice cold and solid. I whirled, tearing my eyes from the hideous mirror and staring up into Hades’ furious eyes.
He was almost harder to look at than the mirror was. His beautiful features were torn and ragged, his eyes filled with black fire, the silver gone completely. Pure fury poured from him, and I could see the shapes of bodies forming in the blue light around him. Screams crept back into my ears, primal fear trickling through my whole body and forcing me to step back from him. His rage-fueled power this close up was too strong for my defenses.
'I will destroy whomever is doing this,' he snarled. 'Death is too good for them. They will burn for all eternity.'
'You're scaring me, Hades,' I said, trying to keep the growing terror from my voice. He fixed his eyes on mine, and they were almost black now. He gripped me by my shoulders, lifting me bodily off my feet and turned, depositing me back in my room. His touch was ice cold and visions of corpses littering the ground flew through my head until he let go.
'I must go,' he said, his voice hard as stone. With a flash he was gone, my bedroom door shimmering back into existence.
I stared at it, my whole body shuddering as my vines vanished. Bile burned hot and acidic in my throat, the cocktails now seeming like a very bad idea. I held my hand up to the wood of the door, feeling its sturdiness. Was the mirror still there, on the other side?
'I hope he gets the bastards. You know, if he didn't keep blocking me out I might have been able to help,' said Skop. His voice was hard too. Warmth was beginning to seep back over me now, and I dropped my hand, taking a step away from the door. The shaking was easing.
'Did you see the mirror?' I asked quietly.
'No. What happened?'
I told the kobaloi what I had seen in the glass, as I poured myself some water and sat down on my bed.
'Who is doing this?'
'Hades will find out,' Skop said reassuringly, jumping up beside me.
'What if I deserve it?' I asked, voicing the question I was finding so hard to bury deep enough to ignore. 'What if I did cause rivers of blood?'
'You were born twenty-six years ago, in New York. You didn't do anything,' he said gently.
I let his words comfort me. He was right. Whatever old Persephone did, I didn't know if I would be capable of the same.
Old Persephone had loved Hades. And if I had forgotten it, tonight had reminded me - the King of the Underworld had a monster inside him.
I stayed there on my bed, alert and on edge, for more than an hour before I heard from Hades. My whirring mind was racing through morbid ideas of what I might have done in my previous life, when a tentative voice sounded inside my head.
'Persephone?'
'Hades!'
'I'm sorry, but they got away this time.' I felt my shoulders droop with disappointment. 'I want you to stay in your room until Hecate comes for you tomorrow. And no more