Soul Bound (16 page)

“Fine,” I growl, offended by their obviously over-exaggerated reactions to my tuneage. “Well, then what about you, Mr. Rock Star? You think you could make yourself useful? Charm the socks off the ferryman?”

Race grins. “Now you’re talking. Of course it’d have to be a capella. I didn’t think to bring my guitar with me. And I have no idea what a lyre is.”

“You might want to hit up some of the others,” Torrid suggests. “A lot of people on the banks here are dead musicians who were buried with their instruments.” He shrugs. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my game. I only have three weeks left to level cap, before I’m forced to head across
the river and face eternal damnation. I need to get moving.” He grabs his mouse. “You can see yourselves out. Good luck.”

Summarily dismissed, Race, Jareth, and I head out of the cabin, closing the door behind us. Race turns to me, his eyes shining with excitement.

“Honey, we’re getting the band back together!”

B
y about three in the morning, Race has somehow managed to recruit a heavy-metal guitar-playing ogre, an Elvin harpist, an imp drummer, and a fairy who must have died circa 1983, judging from his Casio synthesizer. The makeshift band has gathered around the fire and is currently arguing over what kind of tune will best charm the ferryman. There seems to be some debate on whether he digs Goth, classical, or Osborne Family Christmas carols. And unfortunately, everyone seems to be trying to play their best guess all at the same time.

I try to stay out of the way, sitting down by the water, as far from the so-called “music” streaming from their instruments as possible. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure there are ninety-nine-year-old deaf women in Siberia blocking their ears right about now,
moaning in pain, and I’m getting worried on whether this plan will actually work.

A shadow crosses over me and a moment later Jareth sits down beside me in the sand. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything this terrible,” he exclaims.

“Me neither,” I agree. “And I’ve sat through an entire John Mayer concert with Sunny.” I grab a handful of crimson-colored sand, running it through my fingers. “I don’t understand it. Race is an internationally known rock star. And yet he’s as bad as the rest.”

“Yeah, but remember, there’s no Auto-Tune down in Hades.”

“Good point.” I frown. “At this rate, it’s going to take them a hundred years to get good enough to play.”

Jareth gives me a rueful look and the two of us fall silent. But somehow the silence is comforting rather than awkward. And even the terrible music currently sound tracking the scene can’t put a damper on the fact that the vampire has chosen to come sit next to me of his own free will. I steal a glance at him, wanting to say so much, but at the same time I don’t want to push him away again. I realize this is a big step for him, and I don’t want him to regret making it.

“Remember that first night we sat on the beach?” I dare to ask at last, keeping my eyes glued to the water ahead of me. “Right after we staked the vampire Maverick during my first slayer mission?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his slow nod. “You were poisoned by the blood virus,” he remembers. “You told me you’d be dead in a few days.”

“I know. I was pretty freaked out. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, had I known about the free Wi-Fi…” I can’t help but joke.

Jareth doesn’t laugh. “I remember thinking… I barely know this girl,” he continues instead in a dead-serious voice. “How can I already love her so much?” He shakes his head. “It scared me to death, to tell you the truth.”

I swallow hard, thinking back to that fateful night. I’d finally met the one guy I could allow myself to love. The one who understood the walls of protection I’d built around myself for all those years, afraid to let anyone see the real weak and powerless me. I knew Jareth had the power to help me tear down those walls once and for all. To love the real me, despite her flaws.

And now that I’d done it, now that I had finally embraced Rayne McDonald, warts and all, the vampire who’d helped me get there no longer wanted to be a part of my life.

“You saved me,” I remind him. “When no one else could.”

“Did I?” Jareth’s voice turns suddenly bitter. “Or did I damn you to the life of a monster? Sometimes I wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says with a small shrug. “If I had only let you go… allowed you to pass peacefully into a happy afterlife with free Wi-Fi and video games… would it have been better in the end? Was I really saving your life when I bit you? Or was I just being a selfish monster, not able to bear letting you go?”

I stare at him in disbelief. Is that what he really thinks? That I should have died rather than become a vampire?

“So what you are saying?” I ask, not able to help the undercurrent of anger in my voice. “That everything we’ve shared, everything we’ve said, means nothing to you? That if we had to do it all over again, you’d rather let me die?”

Jareth stares down at his feet, his eyes rimmed with blood tears. “I’m just saying I think you would have been better off if you never met me,” he says at last, his voice tortured and broken. “Or if I’d never walked the Earth at all.”

I open my mouth to protest—to tell him he’s being crazy, ridiculous—that my life is three thousand million times better because he’s been a part of it and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But before I can speak, I hear a shuffling behind us. Whirling around, I see Charon standing above us, dressed in a pair of Superman silk pajamas, a big frown on his face.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demands, gesturing to the ruckus up by the fire pit. “I’ve never heard such obnoxious noise in all my millennia! It’s four in the morning, for Hades’s sake!”

I grimace. I was afraid this might happen. Here we are, trying to charm him and instead we’ve only managed to piss him off. I hope Torrid lets me take over his WoW account when he finally crosses the river. Otherwise it’s going to be a long hundred years…

“Sorry,” I say, rising to my feet. “I’m really sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll tell them to lay off for the night, okay?” I start toward the band, but Charon grabs me by the arm.

“What, so they can begin again tomorrow morning?” he
demands. “Absolutely not. I will not tolerate another nanosecond of this blasted noise on my shores.”

I’m about to apologize another hundred times, but suddenly an idea strikes me. It’s a risk, of course. But those who dare, win, right? “Oh, well, good luck getting them to stop,” I say breezily. “Race told me they plan to practice every day for the next hundred years. Evenings and weekends, too.”

The ferryman stares at me with horror. “But they can’t!” he protests. “I need my beauty rest. Eight hours a night, the reconstructive surgeons said, or I could end up back with my old skeleton face. I paid too much money for this skin to have it flake away from exhaustion.”

I feel Jareth rise to my side. “Sorry,” he says, looking the distraught ferryman right in the eyes. “But you know how musicians are. I doubt you’ll be able to do anything to stop them.” He pauses, then adds, “I mean, as long as they’re here, on this side of the river, that is.” He gives him a meaningful look and it’s all I can do not to grin widely.

Charon crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at us. “Okay, okay,” he says at last. “I’ll take you troublemakers across to the other side. Let Hades himself deal with you. But I’m telling you now, Prim is in big trouble the next time he dares show his face down here. Bringing the living to Hades,” he grumbles. “What’s next? Honeymoons? Bachelorette parties?”

“So you’ll take us?” I ask, trying not to reveal my total excitement. “Even though we don’t have any coins?”

“Yes, yes,” he agrees impatiently. “Just don’t tell anyone,
okay? If Hades finds out, he’ll dock my pay again. And I’m trying to save up to have my chin done.” He involuntarily reaches to his chin, which I notice, does indeed look a tad too pointy. “I’ll ready the boat. You get them to stop that noise.” And with that, he storms over to the dock, leaving Jareth and me alone.

I turn to my ex-boyfriend, practically jumping up and down with excitement. “We did it!” I cry. “We actually did it!”

Jareth nods, unable to hide a small smile at the corner of his lips. “I guess we did,” he admits, looking pleased, despite himself. “Now, let’s go tell Race the good news before we both lose our hearing permanently.”

I
f someone had asked me, before this whole adventure, what I thought the Underworld would look like, I’d probably have spouted off some nonsense about fire-and-brimstone, red rocks, bubbling lava, narrow, crumbling bridges. Suffering people, horned demons cracking whips, lakes of fire—you get the idea.

But, turns out, I would have been wrong. By a long shot. You see, the real Hades looks a lot more like middle America. (Which, I imagine, to some, might be a hell in and of itself.) And not the nice, homey middle America with farmhouses and town squares and quaint little soda shops left over from the 1950s. I’m talking the kind right off the interstate—packed with strip malls and chain motels and crappy restaurants. Nothing unique or interesting or artsy as far as the eye can see.

To make matters worse, there’s no sun or blue sky down here
deep underground, and so the colors all seem super muted—almost like we’ve stepped into a living, breathing sixties sitcom. (Without the breathing, obviously. Or the living, for that matter.) Everything is black and white, with the exception, of course, of the glowy purple people floating from shop to restaurant with bored looks on their faces.

“Ugh,” I remark as I step off the ferry, glancing over at Race and Jareth. “I’d almost rather go for the lake of fire at this point. At least it would be colorful and interesting.”

Race nods. “Prim told me about this place. They call it the Way Station. Souls hang out here until their lives have been judged and their punishment decided. Then they’re shuffled off to other areas of Hell. Pits of brimstone, cells of sulfur, or maybe, if they’re lucky, an address in the elite Elysian Fields subdivison.”

“It used to be a lot worse, too,” adds Charon as he readies the ferry to go back across the river. “A few years back, Hades got some stimulus money from the gods and decided to spruce up the place. Added a few office buildings, warehouses. He figured if people were going to be sitting around for months on end, they might as pull their own weight.”

I do a double take as a soul floats by, carrying a briefcase. “So wait, you’re saying when you die you still have to work?”

“Afraid so,” Charon says, restarting the boat’s motor. “The real estate investments the boss made down in Florida went underwater big time during the recession. So he needed some quick cash. And what better way to get it than put all these lazy souls on the payroll?” He snorts. “In fact, China’s outsourced
about thirty-three percent of their labor to Hades in the last couple years. Course, they still put ‘Made in China’ on the label. Otherwise people might start asking questions.”

I make a face. “Sweatshops from Hell? Remind me never to die.” In fact, the whole waiting around on the riverbank for a hundred years is seeming more and more an attractive option.

“So where does Hades live?” Jareth interjects. “We need to seek an audience with him.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Charon replies. “Your best bet is to head over to the Pearly Gates.”

I raise an eyebrow. Charon shrugs. “Hades thought it’d be amusing to call it that,” he explains. “You’ll find he has a weird sense of humor.” He hands me a map. “Take one of the free buses down to Demonia Lane and then take a right onto Spirit Avenue. You can’t miss it—looks exactly like Graceland.”

I look down at the map. “Okay, sounds easy enough.”

Charon steps into his ferry and pushes it away from the dock. “Good luck,” he says as he floats down the river and into the night. “And watch out for the Demon Patrols.”

“Wait, what?” I cry after him, running down the dock. “What Demon Patrols?” But it’s too late, he’s already disappeared. I bite my lower lip, looking up and down the street, searching for anything remotely demonic.

“Come on,” Jareth says, pointing to an approaching bus. “Let’s get a move on.”

We board the bus and it takes off down the dreary streets, puffing nasty-smelling smoke from its exhaust. I peer out from the greasy windows, watching all the souls we pass, hoping to
see Sunny. I know it’s like a needle in a haystack, but what else do I have to do?

The bus pulls up outside a wrought-iron gate, covered with black pearls. Above it reads: A
BANDON
H
OPE
, A
LL
Y
E
W
HO
E
NTER
H
ERE
. Guess this is the place. We scramble off the bus, locating a little guard shack, to the right of the gate. As we start to approach, we’re suddenly cut off by a dog, straight out of Harry Potter—with three heads’ worth of dripping fangs and a tail lined with spikes.

I look over at Race and Jareth. “Cerberus,” I whisper, recognizing the infamous guard dog from Hell. They nod, both looking more than a little worried.

“Who goes there?” demands the dog’s left head, snapping its teeth. As if he wasn’t scary enough without making threatening mouth movements in our direction.

“Um, hey, Cerberus,” I try, wishing I’d brought some dog biscuits with me. “My name’s Rayne. And this is Jareth and Race. We’re here to meet with Hades. Do you know if he’s in, by any chance?” I feel a little ridiculous, addressing a dog, but when in the Underworld…

The beast’s third head rolls its eyes. “Living,” it snorts derisively. “I don’t know how you got past Charon, but I can assure you that you won’t get past us.”

“At least not without the proper authorization,” adds Head #1. Head #2 growls in apparent agreement.

“Proper authorization?”

The first and third head look at one another, sigh deeply, then turn back to us. “If you want an audience with His Majesty,
you must submit your request in triplicate to the Ministry of Audience,” explains Head #1. “There, the request will be heard by six committees. If all of the committees approve your request, then it gets sent up to the main office, where the master himself will consider it.”