My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #1)

If you can't beat 'em, poison 'em (Part 3)

Floating before me was a massive raft. On it, a skinny, hunched old man, clad in a black robe, held a large paddling pole. His head was bowed. As the raft bumped gently against the shore, he raised his head.

Whoops. Not a man. It was a demon, his ageless, soulless black eyes set in a leathery face with sharply pointed features and a smile like icicles. The big, pointy, dirty kind.

He stretched his back and I realized that he also had black wings folded along his shoulder blades. Judging by their collapsed size, they would be enormous if extended.

"I'm good," I protested again as my treacherous feet headed toward the raft. "What the ... ?"

"No choice, Magoo. Dead people have to cross. Don't draw attention to us."

"I don't trust that thing's boat safety skills."

"It's Charon. The ferryman. Been doing this for millennia." Theo jumped aboard the raft.

Charon looked directly at me and I swore that he could see right through to my heart, which would have totally been racing had it actually been beating.

I meekly shuffled into the middle of the raft, careful to avoid his eyes.

"Easy peasy," Theo enthused as we were bumped and jostled from all sides.

Carefully I raised my eyes to see that the raft was packed with people of all shapes, ages, and sizes. "They're all dead, aren't they?" I asked Theo, glumly.

"Great, isn't it?" He turned to a stocky Japanese man next to him with a bullet wound visible through his head. "Bad business deal?"

"Yes," the man grunted in broken English, "my marriage."

"Who did you get these crackpot bracelets from, anyway?" I whispered.

He shrugged. "I still have my resources. I am a very well loved Titan."

"Wouldn't the correct form be 'was a very well loved Titan' since your boney human butt bears zero resemblance to anything titanic?"

"You think busting my chops is in your best interests right now?" he chided.

Fine. I had bigger things to occupy me. Like terror. This wasn't the smoothest ride. Apparently being dead didn't earn you an easy passage. I sat paralyzed in the middle of the raft as the devil water sprayed and frothed around us.

On the plus side, the raft got a bit emptier as the occasional dead person got taken out by the River Styx.

I have no idea how long we were on the raft but it felt like forever before it stopped.

"Finally," I exclaimed, ready to bound to shore.

Theo stopped me with a shake of his head. "Not here. This is Tartarus. For the evil doers. Going to be a lot of massive regret in about thirty seconds.

I was surprised when about half the figures on our raft disembarked. They'd seemed like such nice dead people. I craned my neck to take in the fence of bronze that stretched high and wide into infinity. "Doesn't seem so bad."

Then the cries started. It was the sound of a million souls damned into a frozen eternity. I flashed back to that place of dark terror I'd seen the night I kissed Kai. Tartarus. For some reason, I'd been behind that fence before.

The sounds overwhelmed me with despair. I sat down hard on the raft. All I wanted was to lay down and die. I started to fall back but before I could get anywhere, Theo grasped my arm, digging his fingers into it painfully. "Leave me alone," I moaned.

"Fight it. Dead people have no emotions. If you cave, you'll unbind to your true form and we'll be killed. Come on," he urged. "Neutralize the despair. Think of things you like. Chocolate, sarcasm, Hannah ..."

I didn't care. The raft pushed off again with a bump.

"Remember that time Bethany let you leave the bathroom with your skirt tucked into your underwear? Or when she loaned you her pen that leaked and you were covered in ink just in time for class photos?"

"This is your way of cheering me up?" Luckily, the farther away we got from Tartarus, the better I felt. "That was horrible."

"Don't worry. Our next stop will amaze."

He was right. We were finally able to disembark at the foot of Hades' palace, built entirely of dark green, marbled stone. While nothing bloomed in its gardens, the grounds were filled with statues and the bright moonlight cast a silvery glow over everything.

We wandered up a long stoney path toward the main doors, past a still pool, obsidian black, ringed with silver twisted trees. It was oddly calming. I remembered it as The Pool of Lethe. Hades had spirits drink from it when they had trouble accepting their new reality.

We rounded a corner and hit a crowded area. I tried not to gape. This was the ultimate in people watching. I scooted out of the way of a pair of old biddies, tottering on impossibly high heels, their hair teased and lips hideously overblown.

"Fashion victims," Theo whispered. "Death by collagen injection."

I muffled a laugh as we passed under a stone archway and approached a pair of ornately carved iron doors decorated with scenes of gods in battle.

"The war of the Titans," Theo explained. He motioned to one panel which showed a god receiving a helmet from a Cyclops. "Hades getting the Cap of Invisibility. Droned on about that stupid hat for eons. Big deal. It's not like it fit 'ole One Eye."

Theo gazed at the door, a sad look on his face. I wondered if he was depicted on a panel. I would have asked him but he pivoted sharply and strode off.

I lingered, reaching out a finger to trace a detail. I could have examined the doors for hours. They were stunning and intricately crafted. But Theo had already gone inside, so I reluctantly tore my gaze away and hurried after him.