Unborn Page 2

  “Over there,” he indicated, pointing up to the balcony for spectators. “Let’s go.”

  He took my hand, yet again, and wove me through the gyrating mass, toward the stairs that I assumed led to my brothers. I wondered what they found so appealing about that vantage point. Did they like looking down on others? Did they rule them as Father ruled the condemned? Who were these sons of Ares I was so soon to meet?

  Cresting the last few stairs, we came to stand in a sparsely inhabited area, furnished only with plush sofas and armchairs in dark shades of gray. Occupying the vast space were four males and two females. I knew the females to be human. The males were not.

  “I didn’t tell them we were coming,” Drew whispered in my ear. “I was supposed to be patrolling tonight. I wanted to surprise them . . .”

  “Surely if what you said is true—that I am one that should not be—then they should be surprised regardless.”

  Another smile. His ability to find joy or humor in all things was confounding.

  As we stood, conspiring by the staircase, we were easily spotted. Neither Drew nor I was startled by the approach of a tall, raven-haired man. His build was solid but graceful, just as Drew’s was. Another warrior.

  “Shucking your duty tonight for a little grab-ass fun?” the man asked, both his tone and expression playful. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Drew. But she’s totally hot. I would have done the same thing.” He turned his gray-blue eyes to me and smiled. “Feel like sharing?”

  “Kierson,” Drew started in a tone very similar to Father’s when he was exhausted by the stupidity of his minions. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that in a few minutes.”

  Drew dragged me beyond the nuisance and toward the others.

  “Everybody, listen up,” he shouted over the resounding music. “This is somebody you have to meet.”

  All the men immediately fixed their eyes on me. All but one.

  The group of them was sprawled out across the various sofas, lounging and drinking, except for the one who looked away from me. He was tucked back in a darkened corner, reclining in a chair against the wall. Upon him sat two women—women built for servicing. His eyes refused to meet mine just as his lips refused to meet theirs, pushing them away from his face to other more important tasks. They worshiped him like a god, and, though I knew of all who had reigned on Mount Olympus, I struggled in the darkness to recognize if he was one of them.

  “Who is she?” another man called out from his station. He was methodically cleaning a blade while he stared at me intently, as though trying to ascertain what the great importance was.

  “Ib-austify" met her tonight in an alley during my rounds,” Drew explained. “I thought she was an Empty.”

  That word again . . .

  Whatever it meant, the term brought about their collective attention. Even the god’s.

  “I nearly had her head off, but when I grabbed her arm to steady her for the blow, I knew.”

  “Knew what?” the blade cleaner asked, his annoyance still plain. He wiped the dagger with such reverence, as though it were more than just a weapon—he treated it like a favored pet.

  Another warrior.

  “Her name is Khara. She is the adopted daughter of Demeter, raised in the Underworld by Hades,” he said loudly, commanding their attention. “She is also one of us. Your sister.”

  The blade clattered when it hit the floor.

  “Impossible,” another of the men argued, coming to stand before me in an instant. “There are no females born of him, not since—” He stopped talking the moment his right hand cupped my jaw, turning it up to the scant light of the open room. “It can’t be . . .”

  “It is,” Drew affirmed, gently removing his brother’s hand from my face. “Khara, meet your brother, Pierson.”

  Pierson looked as though he had seen a ghost. It was an expression I was all too familiar with. Every time a new soul came to Father’s domain it wore that very same mask—disbelief, shock, and mild horror.

  While he stood dumbfounded, the man who had first approached us came near, pushing Pierson to the side slightly.

  “Let me see.” He took my hand, his eyes widening exponentially upon contact. There was a strange familiarity in his touch that I could not place, but it was oddly welcome. “I sure am glad you grabbed her before you lopped her head off, Drew,” he said while continuing to stare at me, a look of disbelief still etched deeply into his features. Then, in the blink of an eye, his expression warmed. “So that’s what’s going on here,” he said, grinning. “And I thought you weren’t going to share because you were getting greedy in your old age, Drew.”

  Without warning, he crushed me into his arms, smothering my face as he pressed it tightly to his chest.

  “Khara,” Drew said with a sigh, “this is Kierson . . . our brother and Pierson’s twin.”

  I fought to escape his monstrous show of affection and took a step back to take the two of them in. Though it had not struck me immediately, it was clear that they were indeed exact physical replicas of one another, though that appeared to be where all similarities stopped. While Kierson behaved like a sex-driven juvenile, Pierson was positively serious in nature, his eyes analyzing everything around him.

  While I assessed them, and they did me, the blade cleaner came to join us. He was slightly shorter and broader than the others, and he forced himself between the twins, violently casting the two aside. Neither one said a word in response. They looked wary of him, and, upon further inspection, I understood why. His nearly black eyes were sunk deep in his face, the rest of his features dominating. His head was smooth, with only a trace of hair shadowing the surface. His skin was lighter than the twins’, which served to highlight the darkness in his eyes. To me, he wasn’t fearsome, but he did appear far from friendly. I thought that had he been the one to fall upon me in the alley that night, I would not have likely survived.

  “Casey,” Drew said, stepping slightly in front of me to cut him off. “This is Khara.”

  He said nothing.

  I returned the gesture and stared silently back at him.

  “Do you fear me?” he asked eventually, his expression unchanging.

  “Have you given me cause to?” I returned.

  “Shall I give you cause to?”

  “You offer violence in your glare,” I said sharply, “but it is unoriginal—nothing I have not seen before. If you wish to frighten me, you will have to try much harder to succeed.”

  A wicked smile grew slowly on his face. It was nothing like Drew’s or Kierson’s. I had long known a warrior like Casey—one of Father’s soldiers—who sought to terrorize me from the moment I set foot in the Underworld. He, too, wore that same smile often, and, for the first time since the Dark One came for me, I felt a twinge of fear. That smile promised pain and suffering at the enjoyment of he who wore it.

  Casey said nothing else, but slowly walked back to whence he came, kicking his feet up onto his padded sofa after collapsing atop it. He collected his blade from the floor and continued to clean it silently. I forbade the growing unease I felt in his presence to make it to my face. Centuries lived amid lies, deceit, and struggles for power served me well in that moment. Fear was a weakness that could not be publicly displayed without cost. Father had taught me that.

  I longed to be near him again.

  “Don’t mind him,” Kierson started, draping his arm casually around my shoulder. “He just needs to get laid. He’ll come around eventually, but, until then, don’t worry. He won’t bite—not hard, anyway.”

  He ushered me to sit on a couch far away from Casey before dropping himself tightly beside me.

  “You do realize that you can’t sleep with your own sister, right?” a voice called from deep within the shadows to our right. “Incest is pretty low, Kierson, even for you.”

  I peered into the darkened area as the godlike man pushed his women aside and came to stand before me.

  “Don’t I get an introduc
tion, Drew?” he asked, staring down at me wickedly. I did not enjoy the inequality of my position, so I stood, slowly raising myself from my submissive station. Something about him was different. The others all possessed a faint similarity—he did not.

  “Khara,” I said dryly, not extending any gesture of acknowledgment beyond my name.

  His piercing brown eyes absorbed every inch of my presumably disheveled appearance. My hair was wild from the wind, and I still wore Drew’s jacket. My pants had been torn somehow during my extraction from the Underworld, and I was certain my neck had been bruised, courtesy of the Dark One who stole me away. I felt small and weak—two things I abhorred—so I removed the jacket and stretched my frame to be as tall and intimidating as possible. If we were in a battle for power, then I would wield my sword as mightily as he.

  “Oz,” he said with a tight expression.

  We continued to eye each other silently while Kierson nattered in the background.

  “You are not my brother,” I stated as fact.

  “Not in the least,” he replied, his voice low and menacing.

  “Are you a god?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Why do they service you if you are not?” I aodl not?sked, gesturing to the women who waited mindlessly for him to return. They did not eye me favorably.

  “Simple, new girl,” he said, leaning in close to me. “Because I want them to.”

  He then returned to his post, letting the women fondle and worship him again. They wove their fingers through his golden-brown hair and kissed his face, his neck, his chest—but never his mouth. He sat between them looking smug and haughty, his deep brown eyes pinned on me for the first time since my arrival.

  “Sooooo,” Kierson drawled, looking around the group. “What do we do now?”

  “Khara needs some rest. She’s had a long night. She insisted upon coming here first before heading home because she wanted to meet her brothers,” Drew said, addressing them. “I’m going to take her home. Anyone coming?”

  “I’m in,” Kierson replied, pulling me against him. “Khara can stay in my room.”

  “She’s your sister,” Pierson groaned, looking as though he wanted to tear his hair out in frustration.

  “I didn’t say that I was staying in there with her, did I?” he snarled in return.

  “Fine,” Drew conceded. “Grab your stuff so we can go. Anyone else? Casey?”

  “No. I’ll go finish your rounds.”

  “Pierson?”

  “No. I’ll go with Casey.”

  “Good idea,” he said with a nod. “And be careful. There’s something in the air tonight. I don’t trust it.”

  “Aw, Drew. Aren’t you going to ask me to come with you?” Oz mocked from his shadowy den.

  “No, Oz. You look to be plenty occupied at the moment. We’ll see you later . . . unfortunately.”

  Oz laughed the way Father did when he meant to put on a show of indifference. It seemed quite a show indeed.

  “True,” he scoffed. “Later it is then. Much, much later.”

  He shifted his gaze to me again, addressing me specifically.

  “See you tomorrow, new girl.”

  His mockery earned my indignation, and I left without bothering to reply. I knew his sort; Father was surrounded by an army of them. Over the years, I molded my behavior to draw as little attention from them as possible. Silence proved their least favorite response.

  Drew, Kierson, and I left together, all three of us making our collective way to a black monstrosity of a vehicle—a Suburban, they called it. It seemed large enough to transport an army. Perhaps that was precisely what it was designed to do.

  Traveling quickly through the city, we soon found ourselves in what appeared to have once been a stately neighborhood. The houses, however, were now vacant, windows boarded up with brightly colored markings on the exteriors. Kierson explained the reason for the abandoned nature of the area, telling me about the collapse of the housing market and the outsourcing of industry jobs. Apparently, when the factories closed, people just walked away, leaving their homes behind. As the city deteriorated, those with the wealth and the power left, too, unable to protect what was theirs in the hostile climate that brewed as a result. In that moment, I found his inane ramblings irritating, though they did illustrate the reasoning behind the dilapidated buildings we had seen at the end of the drive home.

  “And then we ended up here,” he continued, oblivious to my desperation for him to stop talking. “The city was thica city we perfect place to corral them when they started to infest other major cities. It was the best solution we could come up with at the time.”

  “Who?” I asked, thinking that perhaps he had finally said something worth listening to.

  “Who what?” he asked, confusion in his voice.

  “Who is it that you corralled?”

  “I think,” Drew started, cutting Kierson off before he could explain anything else, “that is a discussion for tomorrow, once you’re fed and rested. You’ve had your fill of evil with the Dark One today. There is no need for you to dwell on it further tonight.”

  Kierson wheeled around in his seat to look at me as I sat behind him.

  “A Dark One? You were brought here by a Dark One?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how?”

  “He flew me out of the Underworld.”

  “Wait . . . you came here from the Underworld?”

  “That is where Hades lives, is it not? Drew did say that he was my adoptive father.”

  “Right,” he nodded, mentally placing that information in a more accessible place for another time. “So what’s that like? The Underworld? It has to be a totally messed-up place to grow up.”

  “You have not been there, I assume,” I stated, knowing that it was a destination virtually inaccessible to all in existence—apart from the dead.

  “No. None of us have.”

  “It is where the unsavory go when they perish—for punishment,” I replied, thinking my answer should suffice. My brothers may not have been there in person, but surely they would have heard tales of Hades’ realm in their lifetimes. If they had been alive as long as I had, the odds that they would be completely ignorant seemed miniscule at best.

  “Maybe Khara doesn’t want to talk about that right now, Kierson,” Drew suggested. He was correct. Though the Underworld had consumed my thoughts since my arrival, I had no desire to explain my home. Especially to those who could not possibly understand it.

  “Okay, that’s fine. But can we get back to the part about the Dark One? Are you saying that he just swooped down to the Underworld and grabbed you, then flew you out and dumped you in this shithole of a town?” He looked dismayed, eliminating his previous childlike curiosity about my home.

  “Yes. Essentially.”

  “Whoaaa,” he said, sinking back into his seat to face forward as we pulled to a stop in front of the only habitable-looking home on the street. “That’s intense.”

  “It was unwelcome and unwarranted,” I replied. “It was also completely mysterious. Father yelled something about fearing that this day would come as the Dark One took me away. I have no clue what he meant by that statement.”

  Drew turned to look at me as he turned something with his fingers, making the car go silent and still.

  “We will figure out what happened, Khara. On my honor, you will see your father again, and you will get your answers. But, for now, we need to get you rested and fed. Tomorrow we can sort through the details of this mess.”

  “Are you gonna call Sean?” Kierson asked him, a hint of concern tainting his words.

  “No,” Drew replied with an ounce of hesitation. “I have made the decision to hold off on that for now. He has his hands full out east. I see no reason to burden him with this as well, especiallyuld, espec when there is nothing to report other than her existence. What he is dealing with has potentially far more disastrous implications than learning he has a sister. I do not think he nee
ds a distraction to derail his focus.”

  “You mean further derail it, don’t you?” Kierson asked with a tight laugh.

  “I would suggest you keep your thoughts about her to yourself in his presence, Kierson. Sean is rather sensitive about that particular matter.”

  The two exchanged a knowing glance before opening their respective car doors to get out. They ushered me out of the vehicle and into their house within the abandoned neighborhood. While it was in a far better state of repair than the surrounding buildings appeared to be in, I couldn’t help but think that it was in dire need of attention. The detailed exterior appeared to be of the Victorian style. Faded yellow paint flaked off the wooden siding, and the shutters hung askew around the few windows that still maintained them. The others were completely unadorned. Inside, there was a grand staircase leading up from the entryway to the second floor. It cut through the spacious living room, which was furnished modestly and contained enough seating to accommodate the crowd that lived there. There was little to no decoration of the space; no personalization that I could see. It was the pinnacle of practicality while maintaining a pleasant and quaint quality.

  But it was not home.

  “So,” Drew started, leading me through the main level of the home. “We have a small issue we need to address tonight before you can get that rest I keep promising you.”

  “What is the issue?”

  “We are short a room for you.” He looked uncomfortable admitting as much to me. “If it would make you happy, I would give you mine. Or Kierson can give you his. Neither of us would mind sleeping on one of the cots in the basement—”

  “The basement? There is a bed there?”

  “Yes. We have extras there in case we have others coming through.”

  “I should like to stay there.”

  “Khara . . . it’s really not very suitable for you.”

  “I would like to see it.”

  With a sigh, he led me to the door that opened to the cold, dark basement below. As if it called to me, I flew down the stairs as quickly as possible to see what I knew was destined to be my room. Drew followed close behind me. A rock foundation, little light, and a musty, putrid smell welcomed me, and, for the first time since I had arrived in Detroit, I truly felt like I had discovered a piece of home.