“Holy gods,” Skyla muttered.
Miles and miles of gray, billowing fields. Souls wandering as if they were lost. A feeling of desolation floating on the wind. And far off in the distance, black jagged mountains that rose out of nothing and melded with an orange-red sky.
“The Fields of Asphodel,” Orpheus said. “Better than I expected, really.”
“What were you expecting?”
“A lot more trouble before we reached this point.”
So had she.
They headed down. A snarl to their left stopped Skyla’s feet. She turned to look just as an enormous doglike beast with three heads emerged from behind a cluster of blackened rocks.
“Now this is more like what I was expecting,” Orpheus muttered, reaching for the blade he’d strapped to his back.
Skyla placed a hand on his forearm before he could draw the weapon. “Just wait.”
“Wait? Are you mad? That thing looks hungry. And not docile like Charon.”
“If you kill Cerberus, you’re going to draw all kinds of trouble we don’t need.” Skyla handed him her pack. “Trust me. This is why you brought me along.”
She took a step toward the beast. Knew Orpheus was watching her with a what the hell do you think you’re doing? look on his face. All three of Cerberus’s heads growled an ominous warning.
“Skyla,” Orpheus warned. “Wait.”
She stopped three feet from the beast. His rancid breath washed over her. His fangs dripped something vile she didn’t want to think about. When he growled again and bared those rows of sharp teeth, she opened her mouth and began to sing.
A couple of bars of the Brahms lullaby and the monster closed its massive mouths, curled up on the ground, and went to sleep. In the silence that followed, Skyla turned to Orpheus and grinned.
“What the hell was that?”
“Shh,” she whispered, taking the pack from him and slinging it over her shoulders. “We don’t want to wake him.” She led Orpheus down the hill away from the sleeping beast. When they were far enough away she said, “That, daemon, was music.”
“I know what music is,” he snapped. “Where did it come from?”
“Come on, Orpheus. You know the stories. I’m a Siren.” She drew the word out for effect. “Before we worked for Zeus we came from somewhere, right? Hot body, pretty voice, used to lure sailors in to meet their doom. Ring any bells?”
“Hits a little close to home,” he muttered with a frown as he followed her down the incline. “All you Sirens can sing?”
She gripped both straps of her backpack as she stepped from stone to waist-high gray wheat. “Yep.”
“So why didn’t you use that little charm on those hellhounds back in Montana?”
“Works better one-on-one. If things had gotten dire, I would have tried it though.”
His scowl deepened. And for reasons she didn’t understand, the expression made her laugh. “You’re mad because I charmed our way out of trouble?”
“I’m not mad. I just don’t like surprises. Next time tell me what you have up your sleeve before you go walking up to some monster who looks like he hasn’t eaten in three months.”
And that’s when it hit her. He wasn’t upset she’d gotten them past Cerberus. He’d been worried she’d get hurt.
Her feet came to a stop. He moved past her. She watched the way the muscles in his shoulders and legs flexed as he moved. And warmth spread through her belly and up into her chest to encircle her heart.
He glanced over his shoulder. “What?”
Her heart picked up speed. A soft thump that quickly grew until it was pounding against her ribs. Pounding with the knowledge that she’d fallen for this daemon. Fallen hard, regardless of her job and his goal and the thousands of years of history separating his two lives.
“Skyla? Are you okay?”
His voice snapped her back to reality. The reality that they were in the Fields of Asphodel. In the Underworld. Marching for Tartarus.
“I’m fine,” she said, picking up her pace and reaching his side. “Let’s keep going.”
But she wasn’t fine. Not really. She was in love. She knew that now without a doubt. And judging by who and what she was, something told her this love would be the end of her.
***
They’d walked through drab wheat fields for hours, nothing but gray in every direction. Souls had floated beside them as they crossed the plains, sad, depressed souls with long faces and haunted eyes. At first, being surrounded by the souls of the dead had unnerved Orpheus, but he’d quickly gotten used to it. These souls weren’t malevolent. They were simply curious. And something about the entire place left Orpheus with a bad case of déjà vu.