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had
happened last night, I felt a shiver of disgust wash over me.
Images of what had almost happened to me filled my mind, as well as
the memory of what the blood spurting all over my skin had felt
like.
    After I’d escaped to my truck, I’d laid in the
front seat and waited. I didn’t want to be seen fleeing the scene.
About an hour had passed before I’d finally sat up and driven home,
still covered in the bloody mess. Thankfully, I’d been able to get
inside the house and clean myself up without anyone seeing me. Most
of the hands had already left for the evening and Daddy was in the
den watching his program. If the visit from the sheriff was any
sign, though, I was far from being in the clear.
    Slowly, I began to shovel the dirt back into
the hole, burying the remains of my terrified feelings with the
ashes.
    “Did you do as I asked?”
    I stiffened at the voice, recognizing the
darkness from before.
     

Chapter Five
     
    “It’s only been a day, I said, turning around
to look at the man who should have been myth. “I didn’t expect to
see you around very soon.”
    “Things progressed much quicker than I
anticipated,” he said, leaning his back against a tree. “As it
happens, I need your services now instead of when I’d originally
planned. Don’t make me ask again—did you do as I asked?”
    “I did,” I said, crossing my arms over my
torso, feeling the familiar searching of his eyes tugging at me.
“There wasn’t a whole lot to learn, to be honest.”
    “It was enough,” he said, his voice clipping in
an impatient manner. “I only wanted you to have a basic
understanding before I sent you in.”
    “Sent me in?”
    He left the question unanswered, hanging in the
air with the smoke from my fire and his misty presence.
    “Persephone, Hades’s wife, is due back to the
Underworld within week’s end. It appears that we are to have an
early, long winter this year. She was quite put out about
it.”
    “Okay,” I said slowly, not sure where he was
going with the conversation.
    “When I stopped by to have a little
conversation with her about it,” he continued, starting to swirl
some of the smoke between his fingers as if it were a toy. “She was
put off by my offer to help her to escape her prison for good. I
wasn’t so surprised actually. She may be bitter about having to
stay there, but the queen of the Underworld loves the power she has
there. What woman doesn’t love power, really?”
    I wrinkled my nose at the insult, staying
silent. He would say what he had to say eventually, if our last
encounter had been any indication.
    “Anyway, when she wouldn’t cooperate, I took
care of it. We have big plans, plans that she would have hindered
more than helped.”
    “Wait,” I said, catching on to what he’d been
saying in a roundabout way. “Did you kill Persephone?”
    “I did,” he said with a wicked grin. “With all
the darkness she had inside her, it was more than easy to strangle
her from the inside out. Of course, gods can only be killed by a
blade that’s been dipped in the water of the River Styx, so there
was that little extra, fun part as well.”
    He fingered the curved blade at his side, the
sick smile on his face making my stomach turn.
    “Here’s the part where you come in,” he spoke
again, pushing away from the tree and walking towards me at a slow,
over exaggerated pace.
    My skin started to prickle as I realized I’d
agreed to do something that was going to end very badly for
me.
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “You,” he said with a chuckle, pointing a
finger at me. “You are going to take her place.”
    Suddenly, he clapped his hands together and all
of the smog around us sucked together, forming another one of the
copies I’d encountered the night before. It wasn’t me this time,
though.
    She was beautiful; I didn’t know how else to
think of her. Tall and fit, her light brown hair was long and
curled, framing the soft, flawless skin of her face