Hunter

Chapter Thirty Six - Covert Missions

I wasted no time that night in getting ready to go to the Underworld. I didn't have any Syrup with me or any magic bandages since all of it was saved to help restore Arcadia to full functioning again. I was in my bedroom, sitting on the window sill, my legs swinging over the edge of the building. I looked down at the ground, realizing that once I was down, there would be no way to get back. I closed my eyes and inhaled, and then I jumped. Instead of falling to the ground like a pile of laundry, as I had expected, I floated gently down, landing without a sound. I popped my hood and crouched, listening for any sound of alarm. It was just as quiet as when I was sitting on the sill. Knowing that no one would be coming after me until sunrise when they noticed my empty bed, I relaxed slightly. By then, hopefully, I would be long gone.

I crept down the street, sticking to the shadows until I was out of the neighborhood and closer to the main road. I figured that that would be as good a time as any to summon Midnight. I got down on my knee and chanted, my glowing hands hovering over the cold earth. In a moment, my wolf was there before me, powerful and large as ever.

"Hey, girl. Long time no see." Her large wet tongue lolled out from the side of her mouth and traveled all the way up the length of my face. Again. I wiped her slobber from my front and rubbed it off on her fur. "Yeah, I missed you too." Grasping onto her coat, I hopped onto her back. Holding on tightly, I whispered a location and she bolted.

It felt exhilarating to be back on her. I could hear the sound of her padded paws tapping lightly on the damp ground. She weaved through the trees with ease and agility, making the ride all the more comfortable for me. I felt more in my element than ever before. She started to slow down as I realized that we were getting closer and closer to our destination.

It was game time.

When I had gotten home from school, I did some research. As it turns out, a Pink Rose is actually a butterfly, and not an actual pink rose: a red-bodied swallowtail with pure black wings. That was the butterfly that I had to set on fire to summons the Celestial. I had the two obols in my pocket, and I had the butterfly in an encasement in my bag. Once Midnight's padding came to a halt, I hopped off of her back and dismissed her. She degenerated in a soft mist, and then she was gone.

I set to work, lighting the sacrificial fire. It was blazing in no time. I let the fire catch for a moment before I pulled out the butterfly from my bag. It was fluttering around in its encasement, black wings flapping lazily. I looked into the glass container, watching it float by with a few flaps of its wings.

Nowhere to go.

I bent over and unscrewed the lid over the flame. I turned the casing upside down and the butterfly fell straight into the flame. "Please accept my offering, Thanatos, god of Death." I watched the flames carefully. The butterfly rose out of the pit, wings aflame, and fluttered off into the night sky, leaving behind a trail of sparks.

Then, everything went dark. It was a darkness that you couldn't adjust to. It was the type that suffocated you. The type that consumed you. A darkness so thick that no light could penetrate it. I tried to stay calm, my racing heart making me more nervous than I should've been, but I should've been nervous: I was dealing with Death. In the midst of my panic, the god of death's Celestial approached me. He was the only thing that I could see, and he was gorgeous.

His hair was dark and wavy, falling down all the way to his waist. His skin was a dark blue, but it was radiant. He had soft features: a round jaw and a curved nose, but there was a harsh masculinity about his appearance. He was tall and he was thin, but that didn't make him appear weak. Just the way he stood, feet apart, shoulders broad, made him seem powerful. Fearful. The most captivating and chilling thing about the Celestial of Death was his eyes. Pure black, and as dark as night. No pupils, no white. Just bottomless pits of mayhem.

"Speak." Blindly, I reached into my pocket and placed the obol underneath my tongue.

"I seek safe passage into the underworld."

"The underworld is no place for the living." My mind hit a brick wall. I wasn't really sure how to respond to that, and I was banking on the obol to save me.

"Accept this coin as a token of my entrance." I held out the second Obol in the palm of my hand and extended it out to him. Not a word was exchanged, but the Obol heated up before dripping off the sides of my hand in a warm, black mass.

"Your passage into the underworld cannot be bought. Especially not by as worthless a coin as an obol."

"Please, there is a soul that does not belong in the underworld that I need to retrieve. The soul of a descendant of Hypnos, your Celestial brother." I was greeted with silence. "I need to get her. This is bigger than just all of us. There's something going on with the gods and an enemy, and if I don't get to her, I'll never figure it out! Please, you have to let me through!" I was desperate and willing to do anything that I had to get my best friend out of the land of the dead and back to the land of the living.

"Present me with that of which I desire, and safe passage shall be guaranteed."

"What do you want? I'll get you what you need."

"Present me with that of which I desire, and safe passage shall be guaranteed."

"Can you at least give me-"

"Present me with that of which I desire, and safe passage shall be guaranteed."

"How am I-" and then it hit me. I rummaged through my bag, remembering an old myth and my first time at Arcadia. "Come on, please be in here." I rummaged through endless bits and pieces when I noticed what I was looking for, wrapped up in some old cloth. I unwrapped the tusks and presented them to the god of death.

According to the myth, Thanatos was outsmarted and ended up being trapped in the underworld, bound by chains. Ares, the god of war, was unhappy with the lack of death in all the wars that he was waging, so he freed Thanatos from the underworld, creating a bond. One of the symbols of Ares is the boar and I still had the tusks from the Erymanthian boar that I killed during my very first hunt. I was just hoping that Thanatos would accept them as an offering. Waiting was agony. After an eternity on my knees, the tusks started to heat up, and then they floated into the sky in a ball of flames.

"Step forward, mortal." I stood abruptly, not wanting to waste his time, and positioned myself in front of him. His index finger and middle fine he pointed at me like a cocked gun.The cold fingers of Death pressed into my forehead.

Then, I was gone.