over into the frigid, rushing river.
'Not a fucking spark of magick on those fingers, asshole,' Eve snarled, purposely flashing her fangs as she choked the man beneath her. 'Or Hawkins loses his head.'
Jezebel twisted around at the sound of Eve’s voice and her eyes went wide with alarm. 'Nick,' she said, her lips forming the name almost soundlessly.
The mist rolled across the water’s surface and the boat knifed through it. Gull was half-crouched, hands still contorted as if frozen in the act of casting a spell. His ugliness was made worse when he smiled, as he did now.
'Let’s not be hasty, pet,' Gull said, lowering one hand to the bench below him in order to keep his balance.
Eve punctured Hawkins’s skin with her fingernails. 'Call me that again, you pompous prick, and I’ll kill him just for fun, and to hell with what comes of it.'
The smile disappeared from Gull’s face. His nostrils flared and the mist that swept past his face seemed also to swirl behind his eyes. The mage began to hum, the sound low and guttural.
'I don’t think you want to do that, Eve,' he sang in a voice that was not his own, the sweet tones of Orpheus. 'You don’t want to move at all, in fact.'
She tried to fight the influence of that voice, her every muscle strained and burning with the struggle, but there was nothing she could do. The power of Orpheus’s voice was too much. She felt her heart surrendering, her rage pacified, though in the dark depths of her mind her hatred still churned. A spark of panic ignited in her.
Once, long ago, she had been overpowered by a demon with the sweetest of voices. The memory seared her and she did not want to allow it to take root, yet she seemed as helpless in her mind as in her flesh. Eve collapsed in the prow once more, on her back this time, forced to stare at the distended face of Nigel Gull and to see the mad light of triumph in his eyes.
'Mother of two races, hunter of two races, ancient as evil’s kiss. Do you think I’d have you here with me without preparing to deal with you?' he sang to her.
The river rocked the craft, water sprayed over the side and dampened her face and hair, and Eve could only lie there with her eyes open as Gull sneered at her. In the rear of the boat, Jezebel smiled at her and then plunged her hands into the water again. The girl had paused in her propulsion of the vessel and it had begun to be swept along with the current, but now the boat rushed forward across the water once more.
Hawkins sat up, his gunmetal eyes hard as he glared at her. He reached up to touch his neck and his fingers came away bloody. With an unsettling laugh he licked his fingers clean and then crabwalked forward so that he was looking down upon Eve, prone and helpless.
'Just to be clear, I don’t care what you are. Just another sodding relic to me.' He wrapped both hands around her throat and began to squeeze. 'You don’t need to breathe, I know that. But I’ll wager you need your head attached to your body, yeah? If Mr. Gull didn’t need you… ah, but he does.' Now Hawkins grinned. 'Might sample a taste of your blood, next time, though. Play your little vampire game. So mind your manners, leech.'
The wood was rough beneath her. Eve smelled blood but could not be certain if it was Hawkins’s or her own. Beneath that smell was another, one she was noticing for the very first time. The stink of the dead. Not the rotting odor of fresh death, but the dusty, brittle smell of the tomb. It lived in the wood of the boat and drifted with the mist. This place was a realm of the dead and so it did not surprise her, but it served to calm her. Though she had no desire to rest in the grave, Eve had to remind herself from time to time that she was, in essence, one of the dead. Creatures far more wretched than Nick Hawkins had done far worse to her than he would ever be able to conjure in his most depraved imagination.
Eve managed to sneer. But she would not give Hawkins the pleasure of a response. Instead her gaze shifted beyond him, to Gull. Focusing the entirety of her will, she managed to force her lips to move.
'You… need me?' she rasped. 'Why?'
The mage nodded slowly. 'Indeed.' He placed a hand over his heart. 'As to my purpose, I’m afraid you’d never understand. All of this — ' he gestured around him, taking in Hawkins and Jezebel, the boat and the river, and the netherworld beyond. 'It’s for love. I’ve orchestrated all of it for the sake of a woman.' His face stretched into that horrid smile again.
'I’m a romantic, you see.'
Another spray of water came over the side and Eve blinked it away. On her lips, the droplets had the salt tang of tears.
'What woman would have you?' she asked. It was becoming easier to speak, though she still could not move her limbs.
Gull gazed out across the river, all amusement gone from his eyes, leaving only a melancholy emptiness behind. 'The most beautiful creature in all the ages.'
'I hope she’s worth it,' Eve said. 'The pain, I mean. Conan Doyle and the others — my friends — they’ll be coming for you.'
The ugly man raised an eyebrow and stared at her. 'I’m prepared for them, as well. I know what Arthur is capable of. Do you think I’d underestimate him?'
Gull settled into the craft as though it were a throne. He gestured for Hawkins to join Jezebel in the aft of the boat. The slender man moved carefully past the mage, then Gull turned his attention to Eve again.
'Sit up,' he commanded.
Jerking like a marionette, she complied. Somehow his instruction had freed her upper body, at least enough that she was able to glance around at the river.
'The Styx,' Gull said. 'And we come, momentarily, to the far shore.'
Eve turned to see that he spoke the truth. They approached the bank of the river, where the ground seemed made not of soil but of cold, gray ash. She shot Gull a withering glare.
'You don’t think Conan Doyle will find a way across?'
'Oh, I’m certain he will. I’d be terribly disappointed otherwise.'
Only then did Eve notice the activity in the rear of that small, ancient craft. Jezebel still had her hands thrust into the water, surges of white foam jetting out behind them as she forced the river to propel them. But now Hawkins knelt beside her, one hand on her shoulder. Despite the chill of the mist and the river, beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.
Gull saw that she had noticed them.
'Mr. Hawkins is a psychometrist,' the mage said. 'You know that. But he is capable of more than simply reading images and emotions. With enough motivation and focus, he can also communicate them. Jezebel is one with the river. Through her, Hawkins is pouring hatred for Conan Doyle into every drop of water, tainting all of the Styx with the single, unrelenting thought that Arthur is the enemy and must be destroyed.'
A knot of fear twisted Eve’s gut. She had faith in Conan Doyle, but Gull seemed so confident…
Still, she did her best to hide her alarm. 'Water? You expect the water to rise up and stop him?'
'Of course not,' Gull replied. A sneer of satisfaction split his face. He dropped one hand over the side of the boat and let his fingers trail in the river. 'Here there be monsters, my dear Eve. Here there be monsters.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Though only in small measures, Ceridwen could indeed feel that she was growing stronger. The deeper they progressed into the Underworld, the more acclimated she became to the nightmarish place. The process was equal parts relief and concern. Although glad to be regaining her strength, she had to wonder the cost. Already she had begun to feel a certain, disturbing sense of belonging, the simplest thought of returning to the land of the living filling her with uneasiness. What that meant, she did not know. But it troubled her deeply.
They had reached the shores of the swiftly flowing Styx and were awaiting the ferryman to take them across. Danny and Conan Doyle stood at the river’s edge.
'Where is he?' Danny asked, attempting unsuccessfully to skip a stone across the river’s turbulent surface. 'The Cyclops dude said that Charon’d just show up after we got here.' He threw another stone, waiting for Conan Doyle’s reply.
