At least I knew the route now. To the untrained eye, Tartarus looked like an endless vacuum of black, but there was more to this otherworld than simply darkness. Keeping the flame ahead of me, I followed the faint path that marked the black soil below. It was similar to emergency lights on a plane—a single trail of bioluminescence you had to really look for. Except if you strayed from the path, you got munched.
Suddenly, the path rose. The Sisyphean Mountain. I couldn’t see it, but I knew what it was as I darted up the incline. I really need to hit the gym.
As I climbed, I understood Sisyphus’s pains. Rolling a stone up this bad boy for eternity wasn’t my idea of a good time. My lungs straining, I lifted one hand and cast Telekinesis to keep the monsters at bay. I didn’t plan on giving them any Finch Mignon today. They whimpered and whined as my Telekinesis pressed them up against the mountainside.
Wheezing and feeling like I’d aged fifty years, I reached the mountaintop. A shimmer of silvery light shone down, though it was never clear where it came from. There was no moon or stars. The glow just seemed to come from nowhere, casting a spotlight on the “safe zone.”
Where monsters feared to tread. This was Erebus’s pad, and he didn’t let his pets roam here.
Speak of the devil. Erebus, in his humanoid form, floated in the center of an ancient ruin just outside the circle of light. He drifted between broken pillars and traced smoky fingers across limbless nude statues. He’d been waiting for me.
He looked at me as I approached, all black smoke and dark red eyes. Emphasis on the dark. I supposed that was why he’d bothered to illuminate this place. Otherwise, he’d mostly be a scary voice in a sea of camouflage, and that wasn’t his jam. No, Erebus liked to be seen and heard.
“I thought you’d be better at this by now.” Captain Evil chuckled as I stood before him, panting and exhausted and not too happy about it. “I suppose that is one benefit of not having lungs—I never tire.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t all flit from place to place. Some of us have to run.” I stooped to catch my breath. “You know, this would be easier if I didn’t have to worry about getting chewed up when I came. You could let me portal right here and save me a cardiac arrest.”
“Where would be the fun in that?” He scoffed. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to rob you of valuable training. This is part of it, remember?”
“What if I promised to get a gym membership?”
“Do they have Purge beasts?”
“No, but—”
“Then I am doing you a great favor, giving you a chance to utilize your newfound abilities. You need to stay sharp, and Tartarus is your grindstone. You should be grateful for the challenge and the opportunity to flex your magical muscles. After all, you would still be weak and oblivious had I not broken your Dempsey Suppressor.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re never going to change that track, are you?”
“Probably not. It is polite to show gratitude, though you always prefer impudence, to my perpetual disappointment. It’s a good thing I find you amusing; otherwise, I’d toss you from this mountain and gift you to the beasts.”
Yeah, then you’d have one less person to do your bidding, so shut your trap. I didn’t say it out loud. I knew enough to tread carefully. I called Erebus out when necessary, and when I thought I wouldn’t lose a much-loved appendage for it, but I also knew when to hold back. I’d been dangled over that swarm of Purge beasts before, and it wasn’t something I fancied going through again. I hadn’t brought any clean pants with me.
“I’m grateful that you broke the Suppressor,” I said. I’m just not grateful for the whole enslavement thing. Again, I held my tongue. Since I had to tell Erebus about my failure with Ponce, I figured it was best not to make things worse. At the end of the day, he was still an extremely powerful Child of Chaos, and that would never fail to send shivers up my spine.
“Now then, about the spirit of Ponce de León. Did you find the information I asked for? Can we proceed to the final stage, where you will go to make sure it is where you’ve been told?” Erebus draped his wispy form against a pillar, his smoky tendrils trickling down the stone. He had a flair for the dramatic.
Why do I attract drama queens? From being my mother’s slave to Erebus’s—wasn’t I just the luckiest boy in the world?
“It didn’t go according to plan,” I replied. That was putting it mildly. “You’ve probably noticed the bandages. Let me tell you, I’m not wearing them as a fashion statement, and they’re definitely not as appealing to the ladies as you’d think.” I felt the heat of his gaze on me. “In a nutshell, Ponce de León turned on me before I could get him to negotiate, and I barely escaped with my life.”
Erebus snorted. “You think I don’t already know that? I have eyes on you at all times, Finch, through various means.”
Then why don’t you send one of your other minions after all this stuff? I knew he had people bound to his service all over the world. Erebus might have been a crazy-powerful Child of Chaos, but that came at a cost. He was resigned to his existence in an otherworld, unable to cross into the mortal world unless summoned.
Even then, he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted. That had been Katherine’s biggest headache, and the cause of her ultimate demise—needing a human body to bridge that cosmic gap. Despite how formidable they were, Children of Chaos needed humans to do their earthly bidding. And I seemed to be Erebus’s favorite. Or, at least, his most amusing plaything.
“Then why did you ask?” I tried not to show my irritation.
“I wanted to see if you would try to weasel your way out of the truth with excuses. You passed the test, congratulations to you, but that still leaves me without the information I asked for.” His tone grew sharp. “Why did you go to the lighthouse so poorly prepared? You should have known what you would be up against.”
I clenched my jaw. “Well, you didn’t exactly give me details, Erebus. You just said I’d be dealing with a spirit. I didn’t know it was going to be a friggin’ poltergeist!”
“What did you expect?” Erebus laughed coldly. “The spirit of Ponce de León has been bound to this earth for hundreds of years, unable to cross over. Of course he degenerated into a poltergeist! He died a frustrated man, with unfinished business. Had he the courage to drink from the Fountain of Youth, he might have escaped such a fate, but he was cowardly, and this is his eternal punishment.”
“A heads-up would’ve been nice,” I muttered.
“You will be prepared this time.” He swept closer to me. “Find a way to tame or compel the poltergeist. You must force Ponce de León to reveal the location of the Fountain of Youth. I will not accept another failure. My Purge beasts grow hungrier by the day.”
“Why do you want the Fountain of Youth, anyway?” I blurted out. It’d bugged me ever since he set me on this task. He wasn’t human. He couldn’t use it himself. So what the hell was he up to? It wasn’t the first time I’d been baffled by one of Erebus’s errands, but this one seemed particularly weird.
“You are under my servitude to obey my orders, not to ask irrelevant questions.”