Charon

Chapter 3

Emily stares at me with wide eyes. "Wh—what?"

"It's the portal that gives it away. Only the higher-ups can use one," I explain. "Everyone else stays in the Underworld or drives."

"So Paul has been kidnapped by..." her voice trails off as what I've said sinks in.

"A Judge, a God, or a Goddess from the Underworld," I finish for her.

Her hand flies to her mouth as a sob sneaks out. "What are we going to do?" she whispers.

Thinking about the freely roaming dead, I screw up my courage and declare, "We're going to go and find him. We have no choice. To sit and do nothing makes us as guilty as the kidnappers for the havoc it will wreak in the Land of the Living."

Emily blinks several times before she takes a deep breath and visibly collects herself. She nods. "Yes, you're right. We need to find him and figure out what's going on. Then we can report everything to Hades."

If it's not Hades who's involved, I think, but keep to myself. "Right. Okay, so let's head to the Underworld."

Emily grabs her purse and drops her keys in it before fishing out an obolos. "Here."

"Hang on to that," I instruct as I move to the door. We leave the house, locking the door behind us, and I unlock the Crossfire with the fob. We slide in, and I plug in my phone out of habit. I put my foot on the break, depress the clutch, and start the car. She roars to life and rumbles.

I press the ashtray closure to make it pop open and roll out smoothly. "Put the coin in here."

She drops the coin in and I close it up again. She gasps as the skull appears on the hood, indicating the coin has been accepted, and we're ready to find the exit. I hope it won't be far. Sometimes, it was the first exit after I got on the freeway, and sometimes, it was twenty miles down the road.

I ease the car forward and head for the interstate, turning down the empty street. I was glad I gassed up before heading to the party earlier. We see just a few travelers as I open it up on the freeway, maneuvering around them with the quick agility of my car. When the exit doesn't immediately appear, I slip it into sixth gear and set the cruise to eighty.

"How far is the exit?" Emily asks.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I never know, but I think it has something to do with how far the person has to travel in the Underworld. So, that should give us an idea of what we're up against when we get there, I guess?"

We zoom long in silence with nothing but my Spotify mix to keep us from getting too antsy. Emily fidgets, picking at the tissue she still has wadded in her hands. In a few miles, I see the signs for the Underworld exit. I take it, slowing to spiral down and down through the layers of consciousness that separate the Lands of the Living and the Dead. Eventually, we smooth out and hit the acceleration ramp for the freeway in the Underworld.

The road to the river is familiar, but the traffic is light. I can't tell if it's just because there's something off or if it's just a coincidence. It isn't uncommon for the nighttime traffic to be light, yet... something doesn't feel right.

I turn down the radio. "What if Paul isn't the only moneyer missing?" I throw out.

"What I don't get is why Paul?" Emily says. "What's so special about him?"

"I think we will have more and more unanswered questions as time goes on," I admit.

Coming up on the river, I see the bridge that heads across it. When I ferry the dead, I take them across the bridge under the watchful eye of Cerberus, the three-headed dog that keeps the dead in the Underworld, then down into a station to let them out. There, they are greeted by the Judges who take the dead's life into account and tell them where they will be spending eternity.