Hooked [Complete]

63. Beltane Part 9: Dru's New Wheel

Author's Note: Nothing like a crisis to make everybody get real. Dru's turn for an epiphany...and a shocking ending to this chapter!

Song for this chapter: All You Never Say by Birdy. Dru and Sean have left A LOT unsaid. No time like the present!

Dru's POV

I shake my head in irritation as Maeve, the Coven and I arrive at our destination. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the unmaking/remaking that the gods think nothing of. It's disorienting.

The dead are wailing. My hands go automatically to my ears, but it doesn't stop me from hearing the string of profanity that comes from Maeve. I smile. I see where Lana gets her smart mouth.

"The Romans are controlling the spirits," she says. "We have to disrupt that to get inside."

The Coven begins to move, but I already hear a change in the sound of the spirits. Something has shifted. They are not in quite the same despair. They are stirring in a different way now. Spiteful but...lighter somehow. Dangerous, yet almost gleeful about it.

Ahh. I know that vibe. That's Cerridwen's mojo. Cutting and mischevious at the same time. She's taken control of the spirits.

"No need," I say to Maeve, and I walk right through the bubble.

I know I'm an ancient and all, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies to walk through the energy of these spirits. They are so...dead. As I pass through them, I feel a craving for life. An urge to live.

And when I say live, I mean really live. Not exist in the in-between of my past memories and this present attempt at a do-over.

I want a human life—and all the love and joy and risk and maybe heartbreak and death that comes with it. I don't want the Great Divine Compromise that Cernunnos is offering. I already did this shit once—got mixed up too young, too soon, in the divine going-ons of gods. I was not exactly happy, as the baby momma to a god. Cernunnos didn't love me, but because of him, mortal men wouldn't dare. Except one. Angus. And that ended all kinds of god-awful.

Ha. God-awful.

I look down at Cernunnos' Mark upon my arm, and realize I have repeated the same mistake again. Isn't this supposed to be a New Wheel?

I don't have time for this right now. All my angst leaves me, the moment I pass through the spirits and enter the chaos. Damn the dead—they really make you question your life choices.

Cernunnos and Mercury are battling. I have a sudden urge to fling myself into that battle—no matter what, I am dedicated to Cernunnos. But Cerridwen shouts my name between her hisses and growls, and tears my attention away. I am shocked to see Trivia bleeding out beneath her. My eyes meet Cerridwen's and for one moment I feel...humbled. I can see she is mortal but...somehow it makes her even more goddess-like. I always thought her witchcraft was made great by her divinity, but now I see, even mortal, she is stronger in her magic than me. Dark witch is more my thing than hers, and even in my past incarnation, I doubt I could do what she's doing...wielding the spirits of so many dead to oppose gods.

"You dare empower with the dead beyond their realm? And with blood magic? That is dangerous craft," I warn.

She shrugs and gestures to the mostly dead witch beneath her.

"Ah. When in Rome," I murmur and she nods, never breaking her dark chant. I have a feeling, if she stops chanting, she will lose her influence over these ghosts, and their power may be loosed in dangerous ways.

She flings a hand behind her, and "Help him," is all she can manage to hiss between the breaths of her spell.

She doesn't mean Cernunnos. I follow her outstretched hand, and all other thought is lost. Sean is in a magical cage, and Diana is almost in there with him. She's struggling against the ghosts to remake herself.