The Blood of the Hydra Read Online Free Page B

discussing our options. Danielle sat as far away from me and Blake as possible, and by the way she kept glaring at us, I knew we would have a lot of answering to do later.
    “It seems safe to assume that a weapon to the heart doesn’t kill the monsters—it just makes them disappear for a while,” Darius said, running his thumb over his chin. “Which means there’s a chance of the harpy returning as well.”
    I nodded along with the others, although I didn’t necessarily agree. Because they all believed the harpy had died because of the stalagmite I’d shoved into her heart. They didn’t know that she had really died because of the black energy I’d used on her.
    I flexed my hand, remembering what it had felt like when I’d thrown black energy at the harpy. In order to do it, I’d had to collect so much hate and anger. It had felt so dark. Evil, even. I wanted to trust Darius and the others… I really did. But what if I told them the truth and they stripped my powers? Or worse?
    I couldn’t risk it.
    “We need information.” Kate sat straight and alert, focused as always. “If only the Book of Shadows actually had something inside.” She reached for the Book sitting on the coffee table and flipped through the pages, as if expecting something to change. But the pages were still blank. She slammed it closed and sat back in the couch, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the Book. “What use is the Book if it’s empty?”
    “I’m still researching the history of the Book to figure that out,” Darius said. “For now, we need to focus on other ways to obtain information. Do any of you have ideas?”
    The way he asked it made me feel like I was right back in his homeroom classroom. I looked around at the others, figuring that they had more experience with this stuff than I did.
    “The New Alexandrian Library with all the books on the history of witches is in Virginia, right?” Danielle asked, and Darius nodded. “Maybe we can go there and do research.”
    “The Head Elders have been researching Kerberos since the night of the Olympian Comet, and one of the first places they went was the library,” Darius said. “But the portal to Kerberos has been sealed since the Olympians locked the Titans and their supporters there after the Second Rebellion. Since this is the first time the monsters have been able to escape the prison world, there are no answers in the historical texts.”
    “Dying has always meant going to Hades,” Kate said, leaning forward as she voiced her thoughts.
    “For everyone?” I asked. “What about all the good people who should go to Heaven?”
    “Hades isn’t the equivalent to what humans call Hell.” Kate laughed, as if this were something she expected everyone to know. “It’s the general underworld where all souls go after they die. There are many different sections of Hades, but to simplify it, Elysium is the equivalent to what most people think of as Heaven, and Tartarus is most similar to Hell. I thought that when we killed the harpy, we sent her to Hades—hopefully to Tartarus. But what if that’s not what happened? What if, when a creature who was in Kerberos dies on Earth, it doesn’t go to Hades, but it goes back to Kerberos instead?”
    “And with the portal weak, they’re able to escape again,” I said, and she nodded. “It would be an endless circle. No matter what we do, we can’t kill them.”
    “If we can’t kill them, then how will we win?” Chris slumped back on the couch. “It’s hopeless.”
    “It can’t be hopeless,” I said. “The gods wouldn’t have given us these powers and sent us the prophecy that led us to the Book if this was hopeless. There has to be an answer.”
    The others gave general nods of agreement, but they hardly looked convinced.
    “We could go to Virginia and check out the library, like Danielle suggested,” Kate said, although she sounded doubtful. “Maybe there’s something there that the Head Elders