“Respect.” Crone’s glare bored into him. “Pythia is the first Oracle of Delphi. She will not assist if the proper channels are not followed.”
“Then I better get started. If she’s waiting for me to call, it shouldn’t be too difficult.” Alek closed his eyes and tried to speak in his most powerful voice. “Pythia—no. No, let me start over.” He cleared his throat. “Pythia, come to me.” He could feel the women rustle in annoyance as nothing happened. “Oracle, I call upon you.” Alek cracked his eyes opened and was met with the faces of three discontented mothers. “She’s not listening.”
“Alek!” The Furies’ voices melded together as they reprimanded their son. “You are a warrior of the Underworld. The ability to call upon the Oracle, or any God, lives within you. Focus!”
He immediately straightened and did as his mothers commanded. Alek focused, searching inside himself to harness the Grecian blood fueling his abilities. Again he closed his eyes. “Pythia!” A commanding voice he almost didn’t recognize as his own surged from him. “Ancient Oracle, show yourself! I seek guidance. Let me learn from you my future.”
A woman’s breathy laughter filled his ears. Eagerly, he opened his eyes. A beaming white figure materialized and danced behind his mothers as it came into focus.
The Furies stood, turned, and bowed before the specter. “Welcome to Tartarus, Oracle of Delphi.”
“I accept your invitation. Sit.”
“The invitation was not ours, Oracle.” Maiden gestured to Alek as Pythia noticed the young man and turned a curious gaze to him.
“Pythia, I’m glad you could come.” Alek’s eyes roamed across her body. She was gorgeous, with eyes like amber gems pressed into a perfect sculpture. A thick fall of moonlight-colored hair rested on bare breasts while her see-through skirts played around her legs.
“Hm. He looks human. Tastes…” A tongue snaked from her mouth and writhed in the air, “human. Even sounds human. But, what is it?”
“I’d be happy to let you inspect me further. After dinner in the Mortal Realm, perhaps?” He smirked.
The corners of her mouth lifted. “Come here.”
As Alek’s strides brought him closer to the ancient being, the heat from her skin became palpable.
“Closer.” Pythia slowly bit her bottom lip as her jeweled gaze studied him intently. “You believe you could fulfill the desires of a powerful Oracle?”
“Of course.” He grinned.
As Pythia’s vision shifted, Alek watched her appearance do the same. For an instant, he no longer saw a goddess-like creature. Instead, her smile slashed her face from ear to ear releasing putrid tongues that flopped wet and limp like bloated, drowned fingers from their toothy den. Her eyes shuddered in their sockets, exhausted from centuries of glimpsing the future.
Alek forced himself not to cringe away from her.
“You could not conceive of how to even begin to satisfy me. Perhaps you should focus your,” her brows lifted sardonically, “talents on young mortals. I seem to remember they are more easily amused.” More laughter spilled from her lips and playfully twirled through his hair, making the skin on the back of his neck tingle.
Alek felt redness build in his cheeks, and he retreated to his mothers’ side. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Rarely is a woman,” she purred. “Did you call upon me because you are in need of guidance, or did you simply want a glimpse of something deliciously, irresistibly unattainable?”
Alek glanced at his mothers who nodded encouragement. He cleared his throat. “I summoned you because I need your help in finding one of your descendants.”
“Really? My descendant? Why?” Her laughter was seductively sarcastic.
“She is to assist me in my mission, although I’m not sure what role a girl will play in battle.”
Light ripped through the black hall as Pythia screeched. Her curvy figure rocketed to twice its normal size, engorged with power.
“There is much you do not understand. Questions penned on your face and through your being. Hollow as ice. You sample from the plate of a world and a time of which you know nothing and wonder why it is so bitter.” She glowed hot gold as her voice hardened. “I am the Oracle of Delphi. My prophecies halted war and ravaged men. Power so great and awarded by the Gods is not easily diluted. A mortal girl carries this magic within her blood, within her bones. I can hear it sighing, sleeping in her lungs and her blood until it is awakened.” The vibrant figure’s colors cooled, and her body contracted. “Until you awaken it.”
Realizing he was very close to cowering behind a chair, Alek squared his shoulders and his will; he stepped forward, and in a voice that almost didn’t crack, said, “How?”