He frowned. “Nope. Maisey, that was all you. Or rather Thanatos. You must have used some of his power to fight it off. I saw the bastard grab you and I knew I couldn't get here in time. Then the white light burst from your body and blinded me too. By the time I got here, the demon was returning to its primordial form of toxic sludge, and then it was absorbed into the land.”
#TMI #Gross
Pushing my hair back, I sighed. “Not ideal to waste power this early on, especially before we face the Ery-thingy, but … better than being dead, I suppose.”
He was going to roll his eyes for the third time, I was super sure.
Hyperion ran a hand over my arms and shoulders, like he was checking for injuries. “No broken ribs? Or trouble breathing?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I feel fine.” Little nauseous and freaked out, but that was all mental right?
When Hyperion finally seemed satisfied that I was okay, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and started to lead me away. “I’m glad you’re not dead. In better news, I found the portal.”
Yes! That was fucking amazing news, and I felt relief and excitement that we were that much closer to Cronus. Not to mention walking far, far away from the gooey demon mess seeping into the desert floor.
“So, are lots of these types of demons roaming around down here?” I asked as we journeyed in the direction Hyperion had been when I first got attacked.
“No,” he said gruffly. “Not usually on this level … demons were Hades’ thing. He loved surrounding himself with all manner of creatures. Thanatos put an end to that, especially since a lot of the demons feed on souls and energy. Souls are something that this world has in abundance, but once a soul is consumed, it's gone forever, so Thanatos tries to keep the demon population in check.”
Ouch. Fuck. That would have been my fate without Thanatos’ power. I seriously owed him a nice gift basket.
Hyperion was still talking, so I quickly tuned back into him to catch the rest of what he was saying. “The Erynomus is changing the landscape of this world, and with that, it'll be releasing the demon traps we spent centuries putting into place to rid the underworld of its presence.”
I gulped down my next few mouthfuls of air. “Demon. Traps?”
Oh fuck. This was seriously not good.
Chapter 2
Before I could freak out too much about the fact that we were walking through a world that might very soon be filled with the sort of demon I'd just encountered, Hyperion found the portal he'd been searching for.
At first I couldn't see it. Nothing stood out against the stark and arid landscape until we got very close. Then a distinct swirl of energy was visible six feet above the dirt.
“You won't be able to see it,” Hyperion said when we were standing in front of it, “but I'll guide you through.”
I furrowed my brow, wondering if maybe I'd thought the swirl was the portal and it wasn't.
“What's this sparkling swirly looking magic?” I asked him, running my hand near it but not actually touching.
Hyperion did a double take, blinking rapidly at me like I was the one who suddenly had too many eyes and fifty fucking teeth.#Wait #HowManyTeethDoHumansHave
“Humans can't see these portals,” he said softly. “Even with Thanatos’ power and Selene's DNA you shouldn’t have enough energy to see through to the base magic here.”
“So, it's not the swirly thing?” I asked, confused.
“No, it is,” he shot back quickly.
Reaching out, I latched on to his forearm, stopping him from his weird half-pace he was trying to do on the spot. “I'm confused. You're saying I can't see it, but I can clearly see it, so what the fuck do you mean?”
He focused on me, maybe more than he ever had, searching deep into my … soul? “I'm saying that there's something different about you, Maisey Parker. Something I can't quite put my finger on. You should not be able to see that portal.”
#OminousWarningFromGrandpaTitan #YeahIWasFucked
“Maybe it's just a residual overflow from having the power of the sins inside of me … or Thanatos’ power,” I finally said, hoping that we could both latch on and run with that reason. I really didn't need any other freaky things happening to me. “No one knows how that might affect a human, right?”
“Maybe,” he said slowly but I could tell by the tone in his voice that he didn’t believe it.
Come on, Gramps, you know it works best if we all lived in delusion land. Promise, it’s really nice there.
