I frowned. “Maybe if I knew why you wanted it, I could use that as leverage with Ponce de León. I tried to name-drop, but that didn’t work.”
Erebus chuckled. “Nice try, Finch. I can tell you’re dying to know why, but it’s none of your business. Since Gaia is intent on keeping her secrets, this is the only way I will get the information I want. If you’d rather quit, a quicker punishment can be arranged.”
“Let me guess, you’ll feed me to your beasties?” I would detach my retinas if he mentioned that one more time. You’d think after existing for so long, he would have better threats. He could at least spice them up now and then.
“Careful, Finch,” Erebus warned.
“What do you mean about Gaia? What secrets?”
His smoky wisps prickled for a moment. “She knows the whereabouts of the Fountain, but she refuses to tell me. I’ve tried to trick her into aiding me, but she’s always been a smart one. Even in her juvenile state, she can’t be fooled.”
I shuddered at the memory of seeing her by the lake in Mexico. That image was seared into my brain forever. She’d taken on Harley’s teenage form and had emerged all naked, with strategically draped hair covering all the stuff I never wanted to see. Horrifying.
“So, I must rely on you,” Erebus continued. “I really can’t be bothered to explain everything to someone new and see them stumble through the same pitfalls you have. Besides, you are my most powerful asset. I doubt I’d be fortunate enough to happen upon another like you, with all your rich abilities, who’d willingly walk into a deal with me.”
“Does that mean you’re going to give me some pointers this time?”
He smiled through his smoky mouth. “I suppose I should, if I am ever going to get what I want. First and foremost, you must—”
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes lifting skyward. A streak of light splintered across the darkness like lightning. From the moody energy bristling off the Prince of Darkness, I guessed he wasn’t making this happen. A silver glow pooled downward. Like molten metal, it poured in a swirling torrent and hit the ground with a sparkling splash.
From within the weird substance, limbs stretched and a head began to form. The shape was definitely feminine. I’d seen this once before, back in Elysium. Lux had come to join the party, bringing her light to the dark realm of Tartarus. And Erebus didn’t look happy to see her.
However, his manner changed as soon as she manifested properly. He carried himself like a husband who’d been caught looking at something forbidden and was trying to cover it by being overly affectionate.
“My radiant beauty, what an unexpected surprise,” he purred. “Is heaven missing an angel? Because I think I have found her. Is there anything so divine as you, my beloved wife? My star, my moon, my world, my universe.”
Erebus moved toward Lux, smoky arms outstretched. I resisted the urge to hurl. If I tried that on Ryann, she’d laugh me out of the country. Hell, I’d laugh myself out of the country. Hmm, what’s that I smell? Eau de fromage? And man, was it ripe.
“What are you up to?” Lux swatted her lover’s wispy hands away.
Ooh, someone’s in trouble. I stifled a smirk, not wanting to attract Lux’s ire. She might have been made of pure light, but there was a cold side to her. A no-nonsense, I’ll-beat-the-crap-out-of-you kind of vibe. Erebus clearly agreed, or he wouldn’t have been fawning so desperately.
“Me? Nothing at all, darling. Just a few errands. A bit of business that requires a magical. Nothing too complicated or worthy of your concern.” He reached out for her again, only to be rebuffed.
Lux turned to me instead. “Is that true?”
“Uh…” I wanted to tell her everything, just to see what she’d do to her dearly beloved husband. But I couldn’t. Erebus had already promised death to everyone I loved, including me, if I let anything slip to his hard-as-nails wifey. A Child of Chaos was not someone to mess with, no matter how much I hated Erebus. “That’s about the gist of it.”
Coward. Yeah, cheers, brain.
Lux’s stare burned into me. “I hope you are telling the truth, Finch. For your sake. If Erebus is up to something, I want to know. I don’t like his involvement with humans. Those plots of his never end well.” Her tone softened at the end, but only slightly.
“Yep, no lies here.” I couldn’t look at her, but I hoped that wouldn’t give me away. Her warning struck an ominous chord. Will this end well? Only time would tell.
I wasn’t sure which of them was scarier right now. Probably Lux. But she hadn’t threatened the people I cared about, so I was sticking with the program, being an obedient little slave. And Lux was actually showing me a bit of empathy, in her blunt and mildly threatening way, which was a nice change.
This wasn’t the first time Erebus had kept secrets from her. She didn’t burst into our meetings often, but he was always shifty when she was around. They had a dysfunctional relationship that made me second-guess the whole romance thing. Love and hate, in perfect harmony.
“You shouldn’t be using him for your so-called errands,” Lux said suddenly. “Look at the state of him.”
Uh… thanks?
“He is obviously wounded, yet you don’t give him time to rest. He agreed to your deal, but that doesn’t mean you can take advantage. Mortals are not like us, Erebus. They can’t keep going indefinitely, and you can’t work them into the ground, or they’ll die,” she chided. “And why you won’t let him come directly to the mountain is beyond me. You won’t be laughing about watching him fight your monsters just to reach you when one of them snags him.”
Erebus pouted. “Lux, I’ve asked you not to involve yourself in my affairs.”
“And I have asked you to find something else to amuse yourself with. Everyone else manages it, so why can’t you? You don’t see Eros or Uranus wandering around forcing humans to do their bidding!”
Ha. Uranus. If I’d been beholden to Uranus, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself. He’d have killed me ages ago for giggling.
“It is necessary, my love,” Erebus managed through gritted teeth.
“It’s so necessary that you can’t give a weak mortal a few days to recuperate? No doubt he was injured on one of these errands of yours. Where is your compassion? Sometimes I think you were created without it.”
Erebus smiled. “But I have passion. That must count for something.”
“You are intolerable!” She threw her glowing arms into the air. “This can’t continue, Erebus. It’s not your place to keep venturing vicariously into the mortal world, doing so through these poor souls. You are a Child of Chaos. Start acting like one.”
“What does that even mean?” Erebus shot back, his humor turning sour.
“It means you’re supposed to stay in your otherworld and observe, not meddle. Hasn’t Katherine done enough to last us a lifetime? Or are you taking up her ideas now?”
Erebus bristled. “I’m nothing like her.”
“You’re using magicals for your own benefit, so please tell me what the difference is.” Lux started to spark, little flecks of light spraying off her.