Sweet Legacy (Sweet Venom) Read online

  After a quick check to make sure Gretchen isn’t watching, I whisper, “You’re like a ghost.”

  He scowls at me. “What?”

  “You’re so quiet,” I explain. “How do you keep from making any noise?”

  Even in my soft-soled sneakers, I can’t quiet my footfalls entirely. They still scuff and squeak against the stone. He’s wearing work boots but not making a sound.

  He shrugs. “I just am.”

  “You just are?” I repeat. “That’s not an answer.”

  He cuts me a glance. “If you had spent time on the street, you’d know how to be quiet, too.”

  I blink several times. He lived on the street? Grace has never said much about his background—nothing, really. Why would she? I know he was adopted, like her, but I didn’t know he’d been old enough to have lived on the street. I suppose I just assumed he was adopted as a baby like my sisters and I were.

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I didn’t know.”

  We walk on in silence. I’m unsure what to say now, and that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not usually the sort of girl who’s at a loss for words.

  I keep picturing little boy Thane, his chiseled features softened by youth, stormy gray eyes wide and round, fending for himself. Homeless. Hungry and alone.

  It’s unconscionable.

  Finally, I ask, “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “Were you on the street?” I can’t imagine what that’s like. “How old were you?”

  The muscle along the bottom of his strong jaw pulses and clenches. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, especially about personal, emotional things. I understand. I keep my emotions close to the vest, too. It’s precisely why I’m known as the ice queen.

  I’m about to tell him to forget I asked when he says, “Six months. I was eight.”

  “I . . .” Eight years old—a little boy without the strength and self-confidence he has now. He must have been very vulnerable.

  I like to think I don’t take my life for granted. I understand that I’m privileged and that many kids—most kids—have nowhere near the advantages I’ve had. But in this moment, as I walk to my destiny side by side with this boy who is so very different from me, but then not so different, I feel like I’ve never appreciated those advantages more.

  “Do you—” I begin, then realize I’m about to ask the wrong question. Do you want to talk about it? To which he will reply, No. Instead, I ask, “Have you talked about it with anyone? Do Grace or your parents know?”

  That muscle in his jaw clenches again. Tick, tick, tick.

  A dull ache throbs at the base of my skull. I lift my hand to rub the spot, trying to relieve the pressure.

  “Some.” He shifts the heavy backpack on his shoulders. “Not much. They don’t need to know.”

  I twist my head side to side, loosening my tight neck muscles. “They might not need to,” I say gently, “but maybe they want to.”

  When he doesn’t reply, I add, “Maybe I want to.”

  This gets his attention—but not in a good way.

  “No,” he says, his voice gruff and uncompromising, “you don’t.”

  I can practically feel his pain. He increases his pace to catch up with the pair in front of us. He says something to them, and seconds later Gretchen’s monkey friend drops back to my side.

  “He say switch buddy,” the furry thing says. “Okay?”

  Hand on my neck, I study Thane’s back as we keep walking. He wants to be an enigma? All right, he can try. But there is little I can’t accomplish when I set my mind to it. I do love a challenge.

  “Yes,” I say to the monkey. “Everything is just fine.”

  I march on, thinking, studying . . . plotting. Thane might have been able to keep secrets from his family until now, but he’ll have a more difficult time trying to do the same with me.

  CHAPTER 6

  GRETCHEN

  By late afternoon—what I think is late afternoon, for all I can tell in a world without a sun—everyone is exhausted. Greer is getting snippy—in other words, back to her usual charming self. The oceanid is grumpy. My own feet are starting to feel heavier. Thane and the golden maiden are the only ones who seem like they could go on walking forever. Even little Sillus, with his boundless energy, is too tired to keep walking.

  I lift him up onto my shoulders and give my inner whiner a kick in the pants, and we push on. No time to rest. Besides, every time we’ve stopped for more than a minute, monsters have shown up, just like when we came through the portal—like we’re broadcasting our location.

  Not that I had doubts left, but this definitely puts Nick in the clear. He’s not even in this realm anymore. He can’t be feeding info to the enemies. Either we have epic bad luck or they’re tracking us somehow. I’ve searched all our gear, twice. No one in the party has left my sight since we started. If something is telling the monsters where we are, I can’t find it.

  That just means I have to stay on guard and aware of our surroundings.

  Sillus rests his chin on my head and sighs.

  “So,” I ask, “ready to tell me how you ended up back here?”

  He shifts on my shoulders.

  “Sillus minding own business,” he says, his jaw bouncing against my scalp as he talks, “when portal appear. Right there in middle of Miss Greer basement.”

  “Greer’s basement?” I echo.

  “Yes,” he says, with exaggerated awe. “Open up and suck Sillus in.”

  That’s a far cry from the long story he promised, but it is troubling.

  A portal opening in Greer’s basement is a huge coincidence. Those things can open up anywhere, but what are the odds that it would happen in the basement of a sister of the Key Generation? What are the odds that one would open up right where my sisters opened the portal that got me out of the abyss last time?

  Pretty damn low.

  “What else happened?” I ask.

  “Sillus get suck in,” he repeats. “Said so.”

  “I know that,” I say, my back muscles tensing. “But did you see anything else? Anyone or anything unusual about the portal or your trip back?”

  “No, all normal,” he says with another sigh, as if he’s sad to disappoint me. Then he jerks up, nearly knocking himself backward off my shoulders. I wrap my hands around his legs to keep him on. “One thing strange.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When Sillus go through,” he says, “see other door.”

  “Other door?”

  “Not one,” he explains. “Many door.”

  “Many doors?” My stomach flip-flops. “More entrances to our realm?”

  “Yes,” he says. “More.”

  “How many?”

  I feel him shrug. “Seven, eight, ten.” He shrugs again. “Twenty. More.”

  Twenty doors? Twenty portals between my world and the abyss. Sthenno said things are changing now that my sisters and I are reunited. This must be part of that change. I try to imagine what this means. More monsters in our realm? More cracks in the seal? More creatures out hypnotizing a human army to fight us when we finally break the seal?

  This is not good news. We’re already vastly outnumbered. The imbalance is only going to get worse. We need to get the gorgons and get home. I don’t like the idea of Grace being back in San Francisco with more and more beasts roaming the streets, even with Nick to protect her.

  He’s not completely useless in a fight, but they can’t take on an army on their own.

  We have to get back there fast.

  I pick up my pace, knowing that my exhausted companions will have to struggle to keep up. There’s no time to waste. We can rest when the war is over.

  After a few more hours, my feet are dragging over the stone, and I’m embarrassingly relieved when we round a corner and the golden maiden tugs me to a stop.

  “That is the entrance,” she whispers.

  Across the open space in front of us is a massive door.
/>   Twenty feet tall and ten feet wide, it glitters gold even in the dim glow of the abyss and our weak flashlights. Every last inch of the surface is intricately carved with mythological creatures and designs from ancient Greece: gods, monsters, and heroes of old. The Olympians couldn’t have put out a brighter This Way to the Home of the Gods sign if they’d framed it in neon and painted it Day-Glo orange.

  I scan the area, expecting to see a legion of guards ready to spear us to the spot. This is the entrance to Olympus. It should be heavily protected.

  There isn’t a sound, not a sign of another living creature within a hundred yards at least. My sense of smell is muddled by the general stench of the abyss, but I don’t sniff anything out of the ordinary. The door is completely undefended.

  “Impossible,” I mutter. This can’t be for real. “What’s the catch?”

  “It is not,” the golden maiden explains, “as easy as it looks.”

  “Of course not,” I grumble.

  What would be the point in making anything easier for us? Half the thrill is in the challenge. Straightforward and simple is so boring—takes all the fun out of saving the world.

  “Let me guess?” I venture. “We try to open the door and vats of molten lead dump onto our heads.”

  The golden maiden gives me a wry smile. “Not precisely.”

  “Then how do we get in?”

  “Is there a doorbell or something?” Greer asks, stepping up to my side.

  “We wouldn’t use it if there were,” I snap, my exhaustion getting the better of my patience. “We’re not advertising our presence.”

  “It was a joke, Gretchen,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Lighten up once in a while.”

  Clearly she’s feeling better.

  I clench my teeth and contemplate using her head as a door knocker.

  “Petraie knows the way,” the golden maiden says before I can lunge for my sister. “She will guide us. Though perhaps we should rest for a short time. You will need all your strength once you reach the dungeons.”

  “We will?” I didn’t miss her subtle hint. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I am,” she says, “but I do not require rest. I shall stand guard.”

  I’m too wiped to even feel compelled to argue.

  “Wake me if anything comes up.” I smile at her and then turn to the group. “We’re going to take a short break before we go in. Rest up while you can.”

  I don’t deny that I need a nap too. When life gets back to normal, I definitely need to work on my endurance. Dropping my bag on the ground, I quickly find a comfortable position and close my eyes.

  Seconds later I feel a warm ball of fur cuddle up next to me. I wrap my arm around Sillus’s little body and am asleep in less than a heartbeat.

  “Gretchen, wake up.”

  I blink awake in an instant. The golden maiden is leaning over me, a concerned scowl in place.

  “I hated to disturb your sleep,” she says, “but a group of creatures approaches. I thought you might want to investigate.”

  I nod, shaking the sleep out of my brain.

  “Where?”

  She leads me up a rocky incline. At the top, she gestures to the canyon below, where nearly twenty monsters are heading our way.

  The one in the lead—a woman with hooves for feet—holds a glowing object in one outstretched palm. At first I think it’s for light. It’s dark enough in here that even a lightning bug would help.

  Then the hoofed lady turns, taking the group away from our location. The red light in her palm dims. She immediately changes course, heading back toward us, and the red light flashes brighter.

  It’s like a compass, only this one doesn’t point due north. It points to huntress.

  “It’s leading her right to us.” That must be how they keep showing up. “We need to go. Now.”

  We hurry back down to our makeshift campground and get everyone up and ready to continue as quickly and quietly as possible. I can tell the short rest was worth the delay. Everyone is moving faster—with less grouching.

  Petraie leads the way to the door.

  The oceanid smiles shyly before moving to the rock wall next to the door. She runs her fingertips over the stone, like a blind person reading braille. I can’t tell what she’s looking for. It all looks the same to me—one big mass of rough black surface—granite, maybe, or some kind of volcanic rock. Probably something that doesn’t exist in my world.

  “What exactly is she looking for?” I ask the golden maiden.

  “There is a hidden entrance,” she explains. “A side door of a sort, one that bypasses the security measures in place to guard the primary door.”

  “Lucky for us someone thought to make this,” I reply.

  The golden maiden gives me a sly grin. “Lucky for us someone on Olympus wanted undetectable access to the abyss for romantic assignations.”

  “Someone?”

  She shrugs, her shoulders squeaking quietly with the motion. “Rumor claims that Hera once had an affair with Alcyoneus.”

  “The king of the giants?” I sputter. “No way.”

  “Ahhh,” Petraie says, interrupting our gossip.

  She pauses in front of an unexceptional-looking patch of black. Then, after clenching her hand into a fist, she presses it to the stone and pushes.

  At first, nothing happens. I think maybe she’s wrong. Maybe it’s a different unexceptional patch of black. Then—slowly, with a rough scratching sound—the surface behind her hand pushes back into the wall.

  I scan over my shoulder to make sure the monster group isn’t within earshot yet. Thane has his back to us, his shoulders rigid and his hands flexing in anticipation. I turn back to the door.

  An instant later, a section of stone the size of my car slides silently back into the wall and then to the side, out of sight.

  “This way,” the oceanid says, stepping inside the hidden passageway.

  We’re following a water nymph into a secret entrance to Olympus. This might be the craziest thing I’ve done yet. I don’t know where this leads or what waits for us on the other side, but I know that bad things are coming from this side of the passage. As I follow Petraie inside, I reach down and pull out my daggers.

  I feel better with a blade in each hand.

  “There they are!”

  I turn at the sound of the shout. The compass-wielding woman leading the monsters has just rounded the nearest rock formation and is pointing at us across the clearing.

  “Run,” I scream, moving back to the entrance and bracing myself in a fighting stance. “Petraie, can we close the door?”

  Thane takes a matching position at my side.

  Something cold and wet touches my shoulder as the oceanid moves past me, brushing me in her hurry. As the monsters race toward the tunnel, Petraie frantically moves her hands over the rock on this side of the door.

  “I cannot—” She shakes her head.

  The first monster reaches us: a Teumessian fox that is quick as lightning. I spin left and focus all my strength in a powerful side kick to the chest. The fox flies backward, taking out the next fastest beast with the momentum.

  Thane rushes out of the tunnel, pulling his sword off his back as he goes after the next wave of attackers.

  “Any time now would be good,” I call out.

  “I am hurrying,” Petraie insists.

  I hold position at the door as Thane takes on a pair of ursa hybrids. A man with waist-length hair and a row of razor-like teeth gets past Thane. I’m about to give him a taste of my dagger when Greer spins out next to me, landing a solid kick to the side of the head. The man collapses, unconscious, on the ground.

  “Nice,” I say.

  Greer gives me a tight smile. “Thanks.”

  “Yes!” the oceanid finally shouts. “Here.”

  The door starts its slow, grinding slide back into place.

  “Thane!” I shout. “Retreat!”

  I stay in ready position,
prepared to take on the rest of the monsters that are closing in, as Grace’s brother runs back inside. Then, with a puff of wind that sucks most of the air out of the tunnel, the door seals us in—and seals the monsters out.

  There is a faint clicking sound before the glow from Thane’s flashlight illuminates the enclosed space. It looks like a tunnel carved into a mountain of the shiny black stone.

  “Whew,” Greer says. “That was close.”

  “Tell me about it.” I pull out my own flashlight and flick it on. “Let’s get through here before they figure out how to open that door.”

  We wind our way through an unending black tunnel, our path illuminated by nothing more than our flashlights. Every so often I hear a high-pitched sound and I tell myself it’s Greer’s sneakers on the stone. She’s been squeaking every few steps since we started out yesterday. I just hope it’s not rats.

  Petraie stops in front of me.

  “The tunnel ends here,” she says.

  “Please turn off your lights,” the golden maiden instructs, “and maintain absolute silence until I indicate the coast is clear.”

  Thane and I shut down our flashlights, plunging us into even deeper black.

  We wait, silent, in the dark tunnel as the golden maiden walks to the door at this end of the secret passage. The sound of a knock—faint and eerie in the darkness—echoes around us.

  I sense Greer moving to my side.

  “This is insane, right?” she whispers. “I can’t believe we’re about to step into the home of the gods. My parents would die if I ever told them about this.”

  As much as I want to make some snide comment, to make her feel silly for being so freaked out, I can’t—because I feel exactly the same way.

  This experience is getting a little surreal, even for me. Sure, I’ve been hunting monsters straight out of mythology since before I had boobs, but the idea that the residence of the Greek gods—the gods—is on the other side of this door is mind-blowing.

  “My ex-parents,” I reply, “would have probably beat the hell out of me for making it all up.”

  I hear her sharp intake of breath. That’s when I realize I might have gone overboard on our bonding moment. I don’t talk about my childhood. These circumstances are making me more reckless than usual. Greer did not sign up to listen to me complain about my sucky former life. That’s all best left in the past.