Psyche's Heart : CUPID'S MATCH BOOK 3

Chapter 28

The ocean rages around us – hurling the Ferry of the Dead through the night. We rise then plummet with fifty-foot waves that should break the ship but instead just propel it forward.

And I can't think. I can't see properly. I can't hear anything over the billowing of the sails, and the roaring of the wind. I can only cling onto the bars of the cage as though my life depends on it, numb hands wet and bound with chain, my stomach hurtling through my body with each violent thrust and bang of the vessel.

Salt stings my lungs as I breathe hard. I taste it on my tongue. And I squint, forcing myself to see through the aggressive spray of the sea.

Ahead – beyond Charon at the wheel – there is darkness. Darkness that twists and rolls and rumbles like thunder clouds on the horizon. Darkness that will swallow us all.

A part of me doesn't want to look. A part of me does not want to feel its thick fingers coil around my body and soul.

And yet a part of me...

A part of me does not want to look away.

The barrier between the living and the dead.

The barrier Valentine was trying to break to bring back Venus.

The barrier, that according to him, we weakened – just before I killed him.

As we get closer, the fingers of darkness reach out for us. And something within me seems to reach back. 

But then - just as it seems we are about to rise on a great wave and be engulfed completely by the smoke - we bump into the wall of black as though it is solid.

The ferry shudders back to an unnatural halt. The wind calms. The sails flatten.

I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and my breath clouds in front of my face. The air smells like seawater but there is something sweet behind it – something rotten. Death.

All is still.

And it's worse, somehow, than when we were being hurled around by the tides. There is something eerie and unnatural about it.

Wisps of thick darkness board the ship – snaking slowly through the air around us. I watch one as it comes towards me. It is familiar somehow.

I will bring the darkness.

With my chained hands I softly reach out through the bars.

And it comes to me, coils around my tattered leather jacket, and twists, cold, up my arm. I breath in sharply.

"Erm...Charon, dude?" Cupid's voice carries over the unnatural silence and I flinch – pulling my arms away. The smoke shudders and twists around the bars of the cage instead. "Don't want to tell you how to do your job...but...um...is this supposed to happen?" I jerk over my shoulder to look at him. Dark smoke coils up his arms, winding around his neck and brushing his hard jawline. He raises his chin, eyes somewhat alarmed, to stop it from touching his face. "'cause...um... it's kinda creeping me out here..."