Sapphire VI

Amber closed the door of Shelton's room. "That wasn't so bad," she said.

Sapphire gave her sister a half-strength child of Hades death glare. "You're not the one who got asked if you were pregnant. Thrice."

"And I never will," Amber said. She threw a pillow at Sapphire's face and grinned. "Lesbian, remember?"

"You say that like you don't know that gods complicate things," Sapphire muttered as she threw the pillow back on the bed and sat down. "Also, sperm donation."

Amber made a face. "Thanks, I totally needed to think about that."

"Well, considering that you're the only one of us who might live long enough to have kids..." Sapphire paused. "No, that's still true. Magicians have pretty long lifespans."

Amber looked up from the suitcase she was digging through and scowled at Sapphire. "Quit being so pessimistic."

"Aren't I always?"

Sapphire suddenly couldn't see anything because Amber threw a pair of pajamas at her face. She pulled the pajamas off her head, looked at them for a second, and then threw them back at her sister. "Yours. And could you lay off the projectile weapons?"

Amber rolled her eyes but she walked over to Sapphire and gave her the pajamas that she'd packed.

After they finished getting ready for bed the sisters got into an argument about Sapphire wanting to stay up longer to read that was resolved when they both started yawning so much that they couldn't get through full sentences. They curled up together on the bed, each of them with their own blanket but sharing a pillow like they were five years old again.

"Goodnight," Amber said.

"Goodnight."

Sapphire dreamed that she was in a tunnel. She could hear the faint sound of rushing water, like a river somewhere in the distance. She turned around and didn't see any light that could lead her towards an exit, so she picked a direction and started walking. If it was a normal dream then she would end up somewhere else eventually. If it was a demigod dream then she'd probably come across something that would scare her awake or be vitally important for something in the future. Or both. With her luck it would be both.

Far too soon considering the location she ended up being in, Sapphire recognized her surroundings. She wasn't sure whether to groan, scream, or cry. She was in Melinoe's cave. Her immortal sister for some reason that probably involved Sapphire ever being born had it in for Sapphire. She'd tried to kill her at least one time last summer and probably multiple other times that were (slightly) harder to trace back to her. Sapphire had personal experience recognizing Melinoe's cave from one of those other times when Melinoe had waved off Sapphire being dragged to her cave by a swarm of ghosts as an "accident" and then offered her a glass of pomegranate juice.

Obviously trying to get Sapphire trapped in the Underworld much?

Sapphire shrank into the shadows and pressed herself closer to the stone wall as she moved forward. As the goddess of ghosts there was a very good chance that Melinoe would be able to sense that Sapphire was there. There had to be a reason that Sapphire was here so she wanted to try to lessen her chances of getting kicked out prematurely.

Light was suddenly provided by a dozen black candles in a gold chandelier dripping with shards of onyx and strings of diamonds that hung from the ceiling. Melinoe had redecorated since Percy, Nico, and Thalia had been there during the sword of Hades fiasco and the chandelier wasn't the only indication of possibly being the daughter of the god of riches. (Sapphire hadn't heard anything solid about if Melinoe's dad was Hades or Zeus.) Gold frames held black and white photos with details like lipstick and bleeding wounds picked out in red. Black velvet curtains studded with rubies hung over the entrance to what Sapphire knew was Melinoe's bedroom since the curtains had been open last time she was there. Plush rugs in shades of black and red covered the stone floor and a golden baby grand piano played itself in on corner, sending out a puff of steam with every third note of the funeral march. In the centre of it all, Melinoe reclined on a couch, wrapped in a white silk robe and holding a glass of red wine in one hand.

Well, it could have been blood or pomegranate juice, but it was probably red wine.

Melinoe's half bog mummy, half vampire form was on display and her matching black and white hair was tumbling loose over her shoulders. She took a sip of wine/blood/pomegranate juice and smiled. Sapphire shivered and pulled more shadows around her. She didn't try to figure out how she could use her powers in a demigod dream, she just wanted to shield herself from that smile.

There was the sound of footsteps and Sapphire and Melinoe both turned to the entrance to the bedroom, Melinoe shifting her form to that of a teenage blonde girl as she did so. A man with a prominent scar that reached from the centre of his chest to the waist of his jeans stepped through the curtains, pulling a t-shirt over his head. Once his face was visible Sapphire was torn between crying and throwing up. Instead she just watched as Jeremy Asher looked at Melinoe and scowled.

"Don't do that," he said.

Melinoe smiled. "Do what?"

"Don't look like her," Asher said. "Be someone else, anyone else."

"Fine."

Melinoe shifted into a slightly older woman with sharp cheekbones, severe eyebrows, and half black half white hair as Asher took a seat on the couch across from her. Time in the Fields of Punishment hadn't been kind to Asher's looks. His nose was even more crooked than it had been after Clarisse had broken it, the perfectly-styled hair that he'd been so proud of had been shaved close to his skull, and in addition to the one going down his torso there were scars around both of his eyes. Asher was uncommonly vain for a son of Ares, so the way he looked now probably caused him just as much pain as the punishment Hades had devised for him.

"I enjoyed last night," Melinoe said, swirling the drink in her glass, "didn't you?"

Oh gods. Bad thought. Now Sapphire really wanted to throw up.

"You didn't spring me from Punishment just for sex," Asher said. "What do you want?"

Melinoe sipped more of her wine/blood/pomegranate juice. "Exactly what you want, lover."

"And what's that?"

Melinoe smiled. "To make Sapphire Banks suffer."

Asher's eyes lit up. "Can I kill her?"

"Oh darling, that's so basic." The eyes of the woman whose form Melinoe was using shrivelled up, turning into Melinoe's black pits. "Why go for the kill when you can go for the pain? First we'll turn my sister into a gibbering mess and then you can...do whatever you want with her."

Melinoe looked directly at Sapphire and smiled.