She drew her hand from the water with a gasp, stumbling into Conan Doyle’s waiting arms, the violence seared into her mind.
"I told her not to touch it," she heard Danny say, concern in his voice. "What did it do?"
Ceridwen opened her eyes and looked up at them, pulling back from Arthur’s embrace. "The ferryman is not coming. Gull and his people were here with Eve no more than two hours ago," she said, seeing the ghastly image reenacted in the theatre of her mind. She closed her eyes and shuddered even though the temperature was oppressively hot.
"What has he done?" Conan Doyle asked, eyes stormy beneath salt-and-pepper brows.
"He’s killed Charon," she said, trying to force the images from her mind. "And they’ve taken his boat across on their own."
Conan Doyle clenched his fists in anger, turning his back upon them and walking away. She understood his frustration. Their enemy was besting them at every turn. This was not something to which Arthur Conan Doyle was accustomed.
"So we’re screwed, then. Game over," Danny muttered. "How do we help Eve now?"
"Arthur?" Ceridwen called. He was standing with his back to them at the edge of a forest of black, skeletal trees, again lost in thought, but this time she suspected she knew what occupied his mind. It was the way he eyed the copse of trees that gave his thoughts away.
The sorceress was far from Faerie, far from anything the Fey might think of as nature, but she had begun to establish a rapport with what passed for the elements of this barren place. Her strength was returning. Her magick as well, though tainted now by the Underworld. Yet Arthur did not know that. He must have sensed that communicating with the elements here was not as debilitating for her. He had, after all, only just witnessed her forging a bond with the River Styx. But he could not know how far she had adjusted.
This is a test for him in a way, she thought. Conan Doyle was a man of both thought and action, and he prided himself on practicality. What must be done, he would often say, must be done, and damn the consequences. Yet in their battle with the Hydra, his fear for her had caused him to become distracted, endangering the lives of the others and the success of their mission. He had promised it would never happen again.
But here was a similar situation. Will he ask it of me when he knows it will cause me pain?
Ceridwen was about to take that responsibility from him, when Conan Doyle turned to face her. The steely look on his face told her all she needed to know.
"Gull has thwarted us for the last time," he announced, walking toward her. "These trees," he motioned to them with a wave of his hand. "We have no time to build a raft, nor anything to lash them together. You must coerce them into taking on the shape of something we can use to get across." He walked past her to stand again at the river’s edge, gazing out over its broad expanse. "We must act with haste."
Danny strode angrily toward him, his features more demonic than ever. "What is wrong with you? You know she can’t do that. This place is bad for her. Using magick here hurts her. It’s obvious you don’t give a shit about people when it comes to getting what you need, but I figured if there was anyone, it’d be — "
Conan Doyle turned and glared at him, nostrils flaring, and the boy was silenced. Ceridwen wanted to speak up for him, but if they were going to survive, they would have to rely upon one another. Part of that was working out their own conflicts.
"Have you given Eve up for dead, then?" Conan Doyle asked, every word a dagger. "Abandoned her to her fate?"
"Of course not," Danny growled.
"Nor have I. Whatever Gull’s intentions here, they are likely sinister. Even if they were not, he has manipulated us throughout this fiasco, and now Eve’s life is in the balance. I ask what is required, nothing more."
When Conan Doyle spun to face Ceridwen again, Danny seemed about to argue, but then fell silent once more. The sorceress did not blame him. Arthur was correct. In truth, she was relieved that he had chosen their purpose over her comfort.
"Can you do this?" he asked.
And how could she deny him?
They walked upon a surface of bones.
From a perilous mountain path, they had descended into a broad expanse of what Eve at first believed to be limestone. But as they grew closer, she had begun to see pieces of dry, yellow bone scattered on the dirt. In matter of minutes, no matter where her foot fell, the soles of her Italian leather boots landed atop the remains of something that had once been alive. Some of the bones were human, yes. She recognized those readily enough. But from what she could see there were bones there belonging to just about everything in creation.
"Am I the only one who’s a little freaked out by this?" Eve asked, turning to face her captors.
"It’s the bloody Underworld," Hawkins snarled. "What do you expect, a field of poppies?" He reached out, placed the flat of his hand against her back, and shoved. "Keep moving."
Eve stumbled, still under the sway of Nigel Gull’s magick, then turned to look into Hawkins’s eyes. She prided herself on the way she evolved with the world, but in her were all the women she had ever been, all the ages she had lived, and now in her fury she fell back on the Eve of another era.
"Mark me," she said. "You may do your best to forget who it is you trifle with, but I shall not forget. I have bred legions of monsters, and slain even more. Your bones will join these others beneath my feet before long. One way, Mr. Hawkins, or another."
Hawkins tried to smile to show her that he was not bothered by her words, but he could not quite manage it. Instead he gestured as if to push her again, but she was already turning to forge ahead. The path gradually angled upward as they approached a hill. Eve wondered what new thrills the Underworld had in store for them on the other side.
Calmer, now, she shook off the remnants of the past, summoning the sardonic swagger that had become so much a part of her survival as an immortal. Eve glanced over her shoulder at Gull.
"So, are we there yet? I’m bored."
Gull was walking with Jezebel, a protective arm around her waist. There was something untoward about the intimacy between them. The mage was not her father, but regardless Jezebel was still only a girl. Even if there was nothing sexual there, still it was troubling. Jezebel was powerful, and with her red hair and green eyes, and her sensuality, stunning. But she was so obviously broken inside, clamoring for Gull’s approval. And he twisted her around with his words just the same way he wrought magick with his contorted fingers.
Throughout their trek, Jezebel had grown quieter and now she appeared to be a little shaky — not really digging the whole bone carpet thing.
"Damn, the girl doesn’t look well. Maybe she’s just realizing what I figured out the second we arrived. This is a place the wandering souls go. The damned, right? I figure we all belong here. It’s like coming home. Can’t be easy on the kid."
Jezebel shuddered at her words.
"Shut your mouth," Hawkins barked, but he did not touch her. "D’we need this, Nigel? Think I liked her better when she couldn’t talk."
"That will be enough of that, Hawkins," Gull said casually, as though they were all just taking a pleasant Sunday stroll through the park.
They reached the base of the hill, the bone path leading upward, and Eve again considered what awaited them on the other side. Jezebel stopped to rest for a moment, taking a seat on an enormous skull that could only have belonged to something monstrous.
"In answer to your question, Eve, I would wager that we are close," the hideous sorcerer said. He stroked Jezebel’s hair as if he were calming a nervous house pet.
She leaned into him, closing her eyes, lost in his attentions. "I think I would like to go home now," she whispered in a tiny, little girl’s voice that trembled on the brink of tears.