The light emanating from the two ancient torches caught the glint of murder in Hecate's amber colored eyes. The blood curdling screeches behind her only grew in intensity as she stepped closer to Scylla.
"I wouldn't think a daughter such as mine would betray her own flesh and blood, in the defense of one who so clearly does not deserve it; let alone to steal from another god of higher stature."
Scylla's multiple heads hissed as they moved closer together, taking in the power filled form of Hecate with burning malice. "It is difficult to steal what was not one's possession in the first place, Mother. I would think attacking one's daughter would be much more of a treacherous feat."
"We shall have to see then." Hecate smirked, her eyes darting quickly to the two figures huddled under the mouth of the cave. "I have a bone to pick with one siren in particular for sending so many lovely lost sailors to my guide for the past millennium."
Alena could practically feel Hecate's gaze burning a hole through her skull as the woman moved closer to look at her, the predator-like smile reminding her of a smile she had plastered on many times.
Her stomach continued to burn as the liquid settled out, sending a shiver through her system as she noticed the same movement wrack Damari's body, his blue eyes flashing as they settled on her.
Heat coursed through her body under his unabashed gaze, his eyes roaming up her body in a sensually slow manner, coming to a gentle stop at the stunning green eyes that had long held his attention.
He had taken a bold step closer to her trembling body when a low crooning sound reached their ears.
"Oh, how I do hate breaking up such a touching moment between lovers, but I must say, I'd prefer killing you without the taste and sentiments of love ruining the moment. It leaves behind a rather awful after taste. Horrible for my health."
Alena ripped her gaze away from Damari to stare at the goddess' descending torches, moving closer with every word.
"I don't believe that is quite the way to put it, Mother." Scylla chuckled, swimming next to Hecate to place a barrier between her and the mountain. "Besides, it would be a more merrier sight to see your broken body beneath my feet then it would be to witness the useless death of two heroes."
"Heroes?" Hecate barked out. "Heroes? That is what you think of these children, Scylla? I would have thought you more rational then that, to see the murderous siren for what she is," Hecate's eyes narrowed to slits on Alena's form, "a monster."
Scylla pulled a long, double edged blade from a cleverly hidden belt at her side, lifting the blade to hold its pointed tip directly against the smooth ivory skin of her mother's neck.
"I would suggest you choose your next words wisely, Mother, for there is more than one monster in this situation; and we both know it isn't Alena Calli."
"Do you honestly think you scare me?" Hecate chuckled lightly, drawing back to drop a hand into the mist that had crept up her ankles. "I have more power than any of you could ever imagine. As well as millions of men that would love to have a conversation with the disgraceful beast."
"She has a name!" Scylla cried out, slicing her blade across her Mother's cheek only to watch a drop of golden ichor drip slowly from the blade to the sea floor.
Lifting her hand delicately, Hecate smoothed a finger over the puckered skin, smearing the ichor as she pulled her hand away to stare at the substance.
Her head slowly rose up to stare at her daughter, eyes flashing and turning even darker as the golden substance ran down her cheek.
"You don't know what you have started, daughter of mine. I have thousands of the dead at my disposal yet you dare to commit such an act of treachery against me?" The goddess moved closer to the multiple heads of her daughter, holding her hand up when a low, menacing growl came from the mist. "Why?"
A cruel and bitter smile spread across Scylla's faces with nothing but pure repugnance towards her mother.
"You sealed my fate the moment you allowed Circe to curse me, and I would never wish to be associated with a woman who was so uncaring that she thought it wise to destroy the one person who ever loved her. So, Mother, in answer to your question, I would much rather die a thousand painful deaths and rot in Tartarus then stand by the side of the woman who single handedly ripped my heart out."
"I did it for your own good!" Hecate screeched with indignation, the flames of her torches stretching higher as her temper grew. "You were obsessed with your lover Glaucus that you could not see him for what he truly was nor keep the responsibility of the duties given to you! Love is blinding and you fell into its poisonous grasp!"
Scylla's heads thrashed out in fury, one snapping only inches away from her mother's face. "I loved him, Mother! Was loving my mistake?!"
"Yes!" Hecate screamed, swinging at her daughter's face with one of the torches, sending it colliding with the bridge of one of Scylla's noses.
A deafening roar ripped from Scylla's throat as she fell backwards, crumpling to the ground with a reverberating boom.
Hecate turned swiftly away from her daughter's form to stare with a wrath-filled gaze at Alena and Damari, the growling that had called to the goddess from the mist earlier now roaring for death.
Her unwavering gaze settled upon the couple that had backed away from the entrance of the cave, their hands tightly clasped together as they stumbled upon the rocks.
"Kill them." Hecate stated firmly, turning away from the mountainside and the mist to face her daughter again as a hoarse battle cry unlike any other sprang forth from the mist, hundreds of ghostly sailors emerging from within and storming the bottom of the mount.
"Run!" Alena screamed, grabbing ahold of Damari's arm and pulling him deeper into the cave and towards the fiery hole in the ground.
The sailors crashed into the mountain like a tide breaking over the rocks on a coast, not leaving one inch uncovered by their onslaught.
Scylla rose from the ground carefully, the same golden liquid streaming from her nose steadily as a shadow descended across her faces.
Letting out a low howl, Scylla changed form, her many heads melting together like metal under Hephaestus' forge, morphing into the long elegant neck and innocent face of a nymph long forgotten.
Hecate's lips drew back in a sneer as she drew her two torches against each other as a shield. "What trickery is this?" she called above the cries of the sailors. "No mere magic could bring back your true image, Scylla."
"You have your tricks, Mother," Scylla laughed, uraising her sword in the direction of her mother's torches, "and I have mine."
With a slight twitch of her eyebrow, Hecate allowed a nearly invisible frown to mar her face before letting out a war cry of her own, sending one of her torches spiraling towards Scylla.
Just as the first one went flying, barely skimming the edge of Scylla's nose, she dodged its fiery point while hoisting her sword into the air to meet the medium sized dagger that Hecate had torn away from her chiton.
As their blades collided, a tidal wave went out, wiping out the first set of sailors that were scaling the mountain, leaving more of them to take their place as others poured into the cave's mouth.
Alena could hear the screams and cries of the sailors as they ran after them, the pebbles beneath her tail and Damari's feet shaking with the numerous feet pounding upon its surface.
"They're gaining on us!" Damari yelled, refusing to release Alena's hand as she struggled to pull it away to defend themselves.
"I realize that! Now let me go!"
"No!" He shouted back, yanking her against his body so that she couldn't escape. "You aren't putting your safety in danger for a lowly Grecian such as I, I won't allow it, Alena."
"You aren't my father!" She choked out, bracing both her hands on his chest as she tried to push away, attempting and failing to quell the thoughts of his muscles pressing strongly against her hands. "You don't control me, Damari, and this is my choice. I made a promise! I intend to keep it."
Pushing him towards the broad crater in the ground, Alena turned towards the ghostly figures that were storming through the cave, their screams causing shivers of fear to run down her spine, though she held her ground to allow the creature inside her to come out.
"Alena, please." Damari pleaded as he lowered himself into the chasm. "Come with me."
"I can't." She ground out, the urge to kill resurfacing in the back of her brain. "I promised your mother I would keep you safe. I'm not breaking this promise, even if it kills me."
"But if you don't, you will kill me." he whispered brokenly.
Shuddering, Alena felt her consciousness fall back into the familiar cushion that was there through the centuries of killing, unable to do anything but stare and watch as she committed unthinkable crimes.
"It's not that simple, Damari." She could hear herself hiss, cracking her knuckles as her claws elongated themselves and her teeth sprang forth ready for murder. "But you seem to forget, I have killed all these men before. If I did it once, I can do it again."
And before Damari could say anything more, the spirits were upon them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were so many bodies gathering around Alena that she could barely breath as she made all attempts to bat away any ghoul that tried to reach Damari.
Although they weren't entirely human, she was still able to grab ahold of the men and tear them limb from limb before their bodies fell at her feet and began to disintegrate into dust.
Her teeth shredded through skin with ease as her nails dug into their multiple appendages, ripping and tearing with no real direction or motive to her movements.
One man, who had a leg missing along with a patch that covered his right eye, came at her with courage that Alena hadn't seen with most that had jumped into her murderous path.
"I would have thought Hecate's troops would have been better trained." she screeched through her teeth, whipping away the one eyed man with a quick slice to the neck and claws to the heart; strips of his skin still clinging to the tips of her nails as he disappeared with a woeful groan.
This sent a monstrous wave of screams through the men, rallying them once more to fall upon the raging siren.
However, as she sliced away at them one by one, somewhere in the back of her mind, she began to remember.
Remembering all the lives she had ruined through death and destruction, the faces that had never found true peace, wandering the world with no true purpose as they had never been able to reach the Underworld with the blessings of their families on their broken bodies.
She had caused that, and for the first time in her life, she felt herself fall to the guilt because of it.
She could still hear Jesenia speaking to her from what had felt like years ago , but had been only a few days before.
"You may think you are heartless and can kill anything, but I can't, it goes against my nature."
Alena felt her arms becoming sluggish and less calculated as the sailors began to overwhelm her, Jesenia's words striking her in the heart as one man's fist connected with her jaw.
Stumbling to the ground and bending forward over her tail, Alena's vision grew hazy, images blurring together as the spirits trampled her in retaliation. Feet connected with her back until she could feel their heels digging into her ribs.
She could hear someone calling out her name, Damari, she thought while her wrist throbbed agonizingly so, twisting as each kick to her gut sent another spark of color and pain through her vision.
If I were to die from a trampling I would wish it were now, Alena thought wearily, her muscles relaxing as the constant pain grew to a dull pulse in the back of her head and the edges of her vision were smearing into black.
Fighting to stand up with the receding strength that she had stored, a face in the crowd of seafarers caused her stomach to roil in disgust as she fell back clumsily to where she had last seen Damari.
The man held so much vengeance in his eyes that it killed Alena to even look upon his face without guilt and anxiety overrunning her system.
The captain who she had met when encountering Damari's father on his ship in the waters of Pelorum stood before her within seconds, holding a silver pistol tightly in his fist as he aimed for Alena's head.
Her eyes widened as she opened her mouth to scream when a pair of arms grabbed her from behind and yanked her into the pit, causing her to tumble down into the heated body that stood a few feet below her.
The sailors yelled in fury, searching for the siren before racing down after her disappearing form.
Alena felt paralyzed as Damari scooped her up in his arms and ran through the corridors of the molten gully, not knowing where he was going, but only hoping to keep Alena safe and out of any other harm.
His breathing was heavy as her weight started to take a toll on him, but he could feel her strength draining, seeping out of her body in waves that he couldn't stop no matter how hard he tried.
Her face had grown ashen and the wails of the vengeance seeking spirits swelled into a ear-splitting crescendo.
"Alena, please, talk to me." Damari begged, sprinting as fast as he could in an aimless attempt to find any safety in sight, although the choices were slim to none in a place such as the entrance to the Underworld.
"Alena, stay awake for me, come on. We've come this far. You aren't giving up now!"
After turning down one hall and clutching Alena's unconscious form in his arms, he saw a faint light reflect itself against the walls of endless rock and decay that spurred him onward.
His sandals had long worn out from the constant use of running and it felt like he were doing nothing more than running barefoot on the burning stones, but he could think of nothing else save for Alena.
As he stumbled out of the passage way, he practically fell into the river that came up without warning a few feet away from the maze like passage he had rushed through.
The river stretched out across the spacious underground cavern that seemed to reach for the heavens, the top of the cave barely visible as atmospheric clouds floated picturesquely in the solemn and morbidly dark air.
A deep, polluted green tinged the eternal flowing river, steam floating off it in billows as a pitch black boat, carved out of the darkest wood Damari had ever seen, floated to the shore with an equally black hooded figure standing at the helm of it.
Both remained silent until another round of bellows rendered the air, sending fear through Damari while the shadows within the hood simply turned in the direction of the tunnel.
"Are you seeking passage?" The man asked slowly, stretching out an old, time wrinkled hand.
Damari looked over his shoulder quickly and then stared down at the man's hand in question.
"Are you seeking passage?" The man asked again, his hand still outstretched while his other hand held a long, wooden paddle. "If so, a payment is required."
Inhaling a shaky breath, Damari placed Alena tenderly in the boat before searching rapidly through the bag that he had held desperately onto as they ran, praying to any god that was listening that there was some measly cent to carry them across.
As his fingers touched cool metal, he pulled out two opolos that had been placed in delicate wrapping and tossed them to the man as he jumped into the boat hastily.
"You have your payment!" He yelled loudly, watching in horror as the ghostly figures emerged from the tunnel. "Now go!"
The hooded figure looked over at him before placing his paddle into the stinging waters and pushing off from shore, smoothly directing the boat through the beginnings of the river as the spirits reached the space they had recently vacated, howling with anger at the sight of their targets escaping.
Damari leaned back and sighed heavily, pulling Alena into his lap while rubbing his hands up and down her arms comfortingly.
The boat lazily slid through the haunted waters of the Underworld as he refused to let even a peep escape his throat.
~*~*~*~*~