So, really, he meant no. But I understood. We had to keep going.

“Strike, how much farther?” I asked.

The snake opened his mouth to answer, but it was not his voice that spoke, but another I knew from my past.

“The question is not how far, but why would you really want to go there, granddaughter?”

I lifted my eyes and stared at the smiling man in front of us. “Gramps?”

The man in the long cloak and old-fashioned clothes swirled his hand out and bowed in front of me. “The one and only.”

CHAPTER 16

I glared at Gramps, who I recognized only from his younger pictures, because he was hardly the old man I remembered. In fact, the resemblance to Merlin was there in the dark hair slicked back, the build of his body, and the shape of his jaw.

“You jerk! Why didn’t you tell us you were a warlock?” I snapped.

He barked a laugh and touched his overlong nose, the same way Merlin did. He shook his head. “Your parents forced me to swear I wouldn’t. They didn’t want you and your brother to know. That whole Hera business was a mess.”

I rubbed my hands on the arms of my jacket. “So why are you here now? Surely Hades knows that we’ve figured out his ploy; I won’t be coming over to hug you.”

“Oh, Hades didn’t send me. Warlocks don’t truly exist the same way others do when they die.” He tucked both hands behind his back. “You see, I thought perhaps I could help.”

I frowned, wondering if anything he said was true. “Strike?”

“Lies.”

“That’s what I thought.”

I looped my arm through Remo’s and walked away from the vision of Gramps.

“You’re going to get yourself stuck here, one way or another, Drakaina,” Gramps growled at me, and I had no doubt it was Hades who was speaking, not my grandfather.

I spun and glared at him, feeling the hiss roll up through my belly. Maybe the power of the Drakaina was not there in me, but the desire to snap my teeth hadn’t left. “Hades, you can go stuff your head in a gas stove and light yourself on fire.”

“Oooh, now she’s getting testy.” Gramps grinned at me, and his face began to melt like a wax candle, the skin sloughing from his face and slowly revealing the bones beneath. “How do you like me now, Drakaina?”

I turned my back on him, and Remo kept a hand on me. “Games. These are games to him, that’s all.”

Strike nodded. “That is true. Hades gets bored.”

As we left Gramps, or the vision of him, behind, a thought spilled into a question.

“Why didn’t we end up in the meadow with my mother?”

Our guide was silent a moment. “Most likely because it wasn’t really your time. When it’s your time, you go to the place designated for you. But if you come through early by accident, then you wander the swamps until you are drawn across the bridge. Or down the tunnel.”

“The tunnel?”

I shouldn’t have asked. A hole opened up right in front of us, so fast Remo and I teetered on the edge, staring down into the depths. Strike whipped around us, jerking us back, but not before I saw the leering faces, the broken and scarred skin, the eyes filled with horror and pain. I saw them as they reached for us, begging for help.

I clutched at Remo. That was where I’d end up, I knew it. The place where murderers and liars went. Okay, I was assuming that last bit. I closed my eyes, but the images remained.

I walked, hanging on to Remo with my eyes closed, trusting him to keep me safe while I tried to process what I’d seen. My future, that’s what I’d seen.

“You won’t go there, Alena.” Remo’s voice was soft, but it cut through the horror.

“You don’t know that,” I said.

Strike interrupted us. “We are here.”

I opened my eyes. Strike coiled to a stop in front of us, his head dropping down so we were face to face. “This is as far as I can take you. There shouldn’t be much between you and Cerberus from this point on, but do not touch anything you do not have to.”

I peered around him to see a large chain-link fence that was hung with signs:

“Stay Out.”

“Do Not Enter. Guard Dog on Duty.”

“I Can Make It to the Fence in 3.6 Seconds, Can You?”

“Thank you, Strike,” I said.

He bobbed his head and winked one large eye. “For my queen, I would do all I can to make sure you have the help you need. I will pass the word through our kind that you are alive and well. And that you have a new face but the same strong heart.”

I reached up and ran a hand down the middle of his face, his skin smooth and cool under my fingers. “Thank you. Now go. I don’t want you to take the heat for this.”

Strike slithered away, disappearing into a sudden fog that swept up and around us, obscuring my vision to no more than a few feet in front of us. “Well, isn’t that a bowl of peaches,” I muttered.

“How bad do you think Cerberus is going to be, exactly?” Remo tightened his hold on me.

“Not a clue, to be honest.” I stepped toward the chain-link fence, glad for the distraction from the pit behind us. The fence faded in and out of the fog, and I wondered if it was even all that solid. I touched the metal, using it as a lead as I made my way down the fence line looking for a gate. I made it all the way to a rock face that blocked us on one side, then went back the other way.

“There may not be a gate,” Remo pointed out.