Furious

Chapter Fifteen

"What's down there?" I pushed myself away from the hole slowly, not wanting to draw the attention of whatever was trapped inside. Now that I knew where to look, the cells appeared every few feet along the floor.

"Why don't you ask it?"

That's a great idea, let me just stare into the literal depths of hell and shout, "Pardon me, might I inquire as to what, or who, resides in this wretched hole?"

Oh yeah, I'm sure that would get some answers.

"Why do you hate answering my questions so much? Quit being you for a hot second and just tell me. I thought we made a deal, Hector; the least you can do is give me all of the information I need to live up to my end of the bargain."

His expression darkened ever so slightly.

Hector strolled along down the lines of caged cells with slow, measured steps. Virtually empty, dark, and devoid of sound, this place felt right at home in the Underworld. Hector however seemed out of place down there among the monsters.

The room itself seemed to go on forever as Hector continued into the depths of the cavern. He avoided stepping on any bars but was not bothered by getting too close and even though the manholes in the floor all looked identical to me, he seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"This one," he pointed lazily to the bars on his left, just next to his shoe, "Is where I keep a chimera. Opposite of her, I have a Harpy who caught my predecessor on a bad day and has been here for more years than she had lived free. Hades is never one to trifle with. Persephone once spent a night in a hole at the furthest end of the cavern after trying to escape her new husband. Two cells down from these, you'd find a centaur imprisoned for so long that even he has forgotten his name. Further into the cavern, in the deepest pits, is where I keep the Titans—most of them, anyway. With them, Cyclopes, the Sphinx, and their parents. These are the most dangerous monsters in all of history.

"Where you are, however, you will not find any monsters; trapped just in front of your delicate little fingers is a very important creature. In the hundreds of cells in my dungeon, you'll find that one to be most helpful to you." Hector turned a circle around the closest pits as he spoke. He was in no hurry to announce his favorite beastie, but the pride was evident in his tone. Whoever—whatever—was down there had made an impression on him.

So much of an impression that it cheered him out of his daze and the Hector I knew and loathed began to make an appearance.

And he was planning on letting it out of its cage.

I might not have known much about his mythology, but I knew the Titans were chaos embodied in gargantuan forms, the kind of creatures you don't want to meet in a dark alley—or anywhere, for that matter. They must have been blue-ribbon prisoners worthy of bragging rights, the kind you bring out to show off at dinner parties. Yet whatever was in the hole by my knees was worse. The Titans, the chimera, the harpy all sounded horrendous but none excited him like this one did.

He was not hurried in coming back to me, to his secret weapon in the hole. The pads of his footfalls kicked up small dust clouds, the soft sound echoing in the cavern. When he finally stopped across the grate from me I could see that man from the street again, the one who said I belonged with him, the man I knew Hector to be. My body leaned forward over sturdy bars as thick as my arm and anchored at the top of the cell's opening.

The second the bars retracted horizontally into the cell wall I shuffled frantically away from the hole in the floor. The screeching from their mechanical removal fell dully in my ears as the void, greedy for noise, tried to swallow the sound.