The Passion of Hades - Eliza Raine Page 0,48

a small gallop in my chest at the sight of her. I'd seen her before, when I was very first dumped in Hades' throne room, but not this close. She was beautiful, her barely clad body curvy and voluptuous, and her face angular and grand. But her hair was made of flames. Two short sharp horns jutted up from her forehead, and as I dragged my eyes over her I saw that one of her legs was made from wood.

'I saw you when I first arrived here,' I breathed.

'No. That was one of my sisters. We are the Empusa, pawns of Hecate. Welcome to my lair.'

'Oh. Thanks, nice to meet you,' I said, nerves making my voice hitch. 'Do you know how I can get out of here? Not that it's not...' I looked around, scrabbling for something polite to say about her disgusting lair.

'I have four riddles for you,' she said, saving me the trouble. 'If you can not solve them all, then you are mine.' Two fangs shot down over her bottom lip as an evil smile settled on her face. I shuddered as two thin lines of blood trickled down her chin, from where the fangs had torn her lip. Her fiery hair flickered and danced around her head, making her skin look like it was rippling. She gestured with an elegant arm and I followed it to see four holes appearing in a shoulder height section of the rocky wall. They were just big enough to put a hand in.

'Number one. I build my home with natural string, and defend myself with bite or sting. What am I?'

A home from natural string? That had to be a spider web.

'A spider?' The Empusa stared at me, her face unchanging. Did that mean I was wrong? Fear made my chest clench at the thought. I didn't want to die at all, but being eaten by this thing and left to rot here... I'd rather have been eaten by the giant sea-asshole, Charybdis, than have trinkets carved from my bones to adorn this place.

But she didn't move, and I frowned. I was sure the answer was right. There must be more to the Trial than just answering the questions.

I looked back at the four holes in the wall. Four riddles, four holes. Were they keyholes? Keys in Olympus were weird, I already knew that from those awful hourglasses.

So maybe I needed a spider key for the first hole? As I turned back to the lair my gut churned again. Please, please tell me I didn't have to find an actual spider. Please.

'Do I need to find a spider?' I asked the Empusa, my voice small. Her smile widened ever so slightly. Bile rose in my throat as I looked at the nearest heap of bones on the floor.

Then my eyes flicked to the rows of carvings. Was there one carved as a spider? I moved to the nearest wall quickly, and heard a deep rumble. A soft, sensual laugh bubbled from the Empusa's mouth and I looked at her.

'You'd better hurry, pretty little human,' she said, her eyes filled with glee.

A new smell hammered at the lavender barrier I'd somehow concocted. Sewage. My gut constricted, causing me to retch as I swept my eyes over the room fast. Where was it coming from? A gurgling sound dragged my attention to the floor, and my pulse quickened as I saw a black sludge starting to ooze up from the ground, thick enough to displace the rotting bones.

'What is that?'

'Your doom,' the flame-haired demon grinned at me.

I didn't wait to find out what she meant. If I had four riddles to get through I didn't have time to let the sludge get any higher. I raced along the shelves, scanning every little carving, looking for a spider.

'Yes!' I hissed as I finally spotted a tiny bone carving in the shape of a spider, and reached out for it. As I picked it up though, heat burned through my finger tips, and I saw a flash of fire and blood. I yelped as I dropped it back on the shelf.

Another soft laugh came from the Empusa and I turned to glare at her.

'You are no creature of the Underworld. You may not touch my treasures, human.'

'I'm not entirely human any more,' I snapped, nerves humming as I hesitantly called up my vines. Relief washed through me when a green shoot began to ease gently from my right palm. The black vines were