House of Forbiddens [COMPLETE NOVEL]

13: Cloud Hera? Psyche!

Kaden

We were moving a little slower than I would have liked, but that couldn't be helped due to Christine still recovering from a stab wound to the stomach.

"Kaden, can I ask you something?" Christine asked moving up from behind to stand next to me.

"Of course," was my instant reply, focusing more on my surroundings than I was her.

"Do you really think that it was my parents?" She asked startling me. "I mean your mom is the goddess of family and all, can you sense it? Do you know?" She asked, her voice irritated and scared to hear the answer.

"Hey, calm down." I said touching her shoulder lightly, pulling a little bit of magic to calm her down. She blinked a seeming surprised at the touch.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"Little trick my mom taught me," I explained.

"So you can open doors, and calm people down?" She asked trying to get a sense of my powers as we forged along the nonexistent path.

"Among other things," was my quick reply. "And honestly this is little more than a guess, but, I don't think it was your parents. When pain and injury are caused by family normally I can feel it. There was no relation between the person who stabbed you and well... you." I admitted, "from what I could tell, I've been wrong before." I rushed to add.

She looked at me strangely but didn't question it. That's when we ran into a familiar figure, Bob. Yes, Bob, the undead cat that adores Ian to the extremes.

"Bob." Christine said looking directly at the cat, she couldn't tell the difference between Ian and Jack, but thank the moon and stars that she knew the cat.

"Yep," I replied, kneeling down next to the cat. "Did you want to tell us something?" I asked and the cat lumbered over to me completely content with the current scenario. Did I mention how much this cat loved Ian? Well when it wasn't with Ian it was always desperately trying to find Ian.

"Something is wrong." I muttered getting back to my feet.

"The cat told you that?!" Christine asked, confused, that moment Bob decided to rattle, shaking his remaining insides against the loosely fitted rib cage.

"Do you see Ian anywhere?" I asked, after a quick scan she shook her head. "Exactly."

"But it's too late to turn back now isn't it?" Asked a voice. The realization was sudden and horrible. We had walked straight into a trap. Willing.

A cloud-like vapor rose from around the two figures, revealing who they truly were. For starters, they were both girls. Both were pretty but not to the point of truly being noticed.

"A cloud disguise, like the one used to trick Ixion, except yours just hides who you really are?" I asked the two girls. Long myth short? Ixion had been credited with the discovery of killing people with weapons, when the gods had invited him to feast with them he flirted with Hera. When Zeus heard he created a cloud dummy of Hera in order to see if he really meant to dishonor her. He did. That got him immortality, as he spins around the earth on a giant flaming shield for the rest of eternity. Heads up, not smart to flirt with the goddess of marriage (or her husband for that matter).

"Oh, know your myths do you? Then let me ask child of family, who are we?" Their voices demanded in unison.

A two sisters that worked for discord, there were plenty of myths in which family members had caused trouble for a Greek hero, but speaking Christine and I lives were at stake it would be appropriate to get it right the first time.

"Kaden?" Christine voice was panicked as she pointed at the girls. One almost seemed to blow away in the wind.

"Your spirits, it's likely that you came back through the doors of death. Yall used the cloud bodies as your own." I said thinking aloud again, but this time everything started to make sense as I talked. With that I felt a huge smile tugging at my lips. "Your Phyche's sisters, the ones that tricked her into seeing her husband, Eros." I loved the story of Phyche, not only is she a female Greek hero, but she also gets a happy ending and gets turned into a goddess to live with her husband forever (Plus she makes a fool of Aphrodite, a life goal of mine).

"Yes and let me tell you now girl, family brings nothing but pain." She sneered lunging at me. I ducked just in time, pulling Christine out of the way. We ducked out of the way, as their cloud bodies started reforming around them.

"What, who?" Christine asked, wide eyed and panicked. I would have calmed her down, but she would likely need that adrenalin later when we needed to run.

"I promise I will explain everything later." I told her. Just as one of the sister's cloud body reformed. Now you may not think that a cloud body can do much damage, please keep in mind that cloud Hera had a baby.

The cloud sister lunged at us, I was able to move out of the way, but Christine, a little slower because of her recent injury, wasn't quite fast enough.

She screamed and an unnatural darkness began to cover the clearing, I tried walking towards her, but soon I found myself lost in the endless tunnels of sheer blackness, the screaming stop, but whether that was a good thing or a bad I had no idea.

Eventually I found myself at the edge of a huge dome of darkness, unfortunately so did sister, you know what I'm going to call her sister A, AKA Christine's dad. The cloud body was still reforming around the sister. Making her this half man, half pretty young girl monster like thing.

"I meant what I said," Sister A said, "family brings nothing but toil. My own sister killed me." She said angrily.

"After you ruined her life by making her see her husband, and all of the horrible things that you did to her as a child." I reminded her.

"Still daughter of family, do you see nothing wrong, your family will only bring you pain, someone will betray you." Sister A said, and I took a deep breath, pulled on the joy that my family had brought me, and prepared to give this sister a little taste of what it was like to be a peacekeeper. I looked her straight in the eyes. Betrayal, loss, pain, fear, hurt, and a million other painful memories filled through my mind. Sister A fell to the ground screaming. It was my only for of defense, or attack really, but using it felt like driving a stake through my heart.

"Make it stop, make it stop." She begged, but I didn't. This was the monster that tried to kill my sister, this was the monster that almost succeeded in killing my family. You can't kill a spirit, but you can scare it.

"Go where you belong, and get out of here." I told her calmly and she fled. I blinked shaking my head trying to clear it, it had been almost four years since I had used that, I had forgotten how horrible it felt.

Looking around I realized that I was completely alone. I was completely alone, weaponless, and I had lost my cell phone in the darkness that still surrounded the woods, and had nothing left to draw on. For once I was completely alone.

By: Marie Fay