Hooked [Complete]

Beltane Part 7: Cerridwen's Sacrifice

Author's Note: Cerridwen is now an entirely different goddess than the one we saw in the beginning! She's probably changed more than any other character in the whole book. Find out what she does next:

For some reason, I don't have a song. Or I can't remember which one I listened to, when I wrote this.

Cerridwen's POV

When I come to, the first sensation I feel is cold. Bone chilling cold. It takes me a moment to realize that's because I am lying on my back on a large stone slab, with a dozen ghosts anchoring me. The cold of the dead has seeped into my limbs, and they are heavy and numb, but I am a goddess. I struggle and throw a few off, manage to move my left arm before more ghosts come to pin it down again. I gasp, and repeat the process, but I cannot get free for more than a few seconds. These ghosts have been asleep along time. Peace has made them powerful, and Trivia has made them angry. They want to complete their task and be freed.

Stag, my head hurts. Having your neck snapped will do that. Well, one good thing about it, Cernunnos is both wrong and right. Clearly, I am breakable, but fortunately I am still immortal.

"Carrie," Sean is speaking to me. I manage to turn my head to look at him. Tears of fury well in my eyes and spill down the side of my face as I look at the bloody evidence of his torture.

"I'm so sorry," I murmur.

"Silence," Trivia says. "It's time to begin."

Diana and Apollo suddenly appear, looking less bored than they did at the hunt. Diana enters Sean's cage and stands beside him while he ignores her as if he was expecting her to do that. As if she had done it before. Apollo remakes himself into Lana's cage and pulls her roughly to her feet. He give her a blinding flash of energy, and she is suddenly more alert, but she is not surprised to see Apollo in her cage either. Apollo stands to the right of Lana and Diana to the left of Sean. Two sets of magical twins aligned in x-formation.

I realize at once, Trivia has crafted an ingenious and formible weapon.

"You're planning to cut away my immortality.I must admit, witch, you are not as powerful as I, but you are very very clever. "

"Yes," Mercury agrees. "Trivia is very clever, to understand how best to hurt Cernunnos. We cannot kill him outright, so we must do what we can to distract him. "

"So you are planning to render me mortal, and then kill me. Yes, that will hurt him greatly. Perhaps even break his horns again," I agree.

"Kill you? No, my dear, I already promised you, I plan to keep you for myself." Mercury agrees darkly. "But Cernunnos will go mad to know that I hold your immortality in my hands, I assure you. He'll do whatever I ask."

"Hmmmm." The flaw in Mercury's plan is that Lana and Sean can't work magic against me. Mercury doesn't understand that. He doesn't understand the bond I have with them. His godspawn are all acts of compulsion, not acts of free dedication. Suddenly nervous for my mortals when they fail, I turn my gaze upon Sean.

He holds up his wrist, flashing my own symbol at me. "I love you, my Goddess," he says, and it sounds like a goodbye.

He knows. He knows they can't work magic against me. He also knows Mercury will kill them, trying to make them. Okay, fine...we'll draw this out awhile, until Cernunnos arrives. But pretending to have my immortality cut away is going to be messy.

"Carrie," Lana says urgently, and I tear my attention away from Sean to my Priestess. "I'm sorry it has to be this way. It's you or us, just like Sean's vision."