I stood in front of her and spoke aloud, clutching the locket in my right hand. “Medusa, if you can hear me, it’s Jodi. I know I look a little different right now, but this was the only way I could come see you. I need your help to save the others. I need to connect to your statue so we can talk and figure out how to defeat Hades once and for all. If you could avoid…killing me, I’d really appreciate it. I’m sort of counting on you recognizing my soul quickly, which is why I’m wearing your locket. Our locket. We are one and the same now. Even in this body, you must be able to see me.”
I let go of the locket and inched my hands toward the statue. This was it. I might die. “Please, Medusa,” I pleaded as my hands slipped into hers.
At first, nothing happened. I thought maybe Medusa’s soul had no effect on humans. I opened my mouth to talk to her, but an intense pain shot through my hands, up my arms, and into my chest. My lungs and heart clenched as if they were being shocked. The pain traveled up my neck and to my brain.
My eyes rolled back into my head, and I blacked out.
Chapter 26
Silence. That’s all there was. The air around me was completely still. I couldn’t feel my body, and all I saw was darkness. Was I dead? Had Medusa killed me? I couldn’t move, so I spoke with my mind. It was how Medusa and I had always communicated when we were connected by the statue.
“Medusa?”
No answer.
“Hades?” I wondered if I was back in the underworld. If Medusa had killed me, that was where I’d end up.
“No, child.” Medusa’s voice filled my mind. Peace washed over me. She was here. Even if I was dead, it was okay because Medusa was with me. She’d make sure I moved on safely.
“You aren’t dead, Jodi.”
“You know who I am. You recognized me.”
“Yes, but not before I hurt you very badly. This body will no longer be able to serve as a host to you.”
What? Where was I if I wasn’t in Liz’s body?
Through the connection, Medusa read my mind. “You are still inside your host body, but you won’t be able to remain there. You need to reach out to another body nearby and put your human soul into it.”
Oh, God. She’d destroyed Liz’s body, made it so I couldn’t use it anymore. And now that I was human, I couldn’t raise my own soul. “I can’t. I don’t have any powers.”
“I know you are weak, but I can help you.”
“Help me? I won’t be able to do anything at all. You’ll have to do it for me. My Ophi soul is in the underworld. I can’t access it without going back there.”
“No, you can’t do that. I’m keeping your soul in this shell. If you return your focus to the underworld, I won’t be able to hold your human soul here. It will move on.” She shook her head, making the snakes hiss. “I can’t raise a body for you, either. Not from inside this statue.”
What else was there?
“You are tethered to the statue right now.”
Tethered to the statue. Trapped like she was.
“Yes. In a way, that is true.”
“If my human soul passes on, I’ll be forced back into the underworld.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t go yet. I don’t know how to defeat Hades. That’s why I’m here. Mason said I’d have to make a deal with him. One big enough to end all of this for good.”
“I agree.” Medusa lowered her head, giving me a good view of the snakes wriggling around.
The question was, what did Hades want?
“Me,” Medusa answered my unspoken question.
“What do you mean you?”
“You know the deal the Ophi made with Hades for my soul.”
I nodded. “Yes, they freed you from him. He can’t touch you.”
“Not while I’m locked in this statue.” She held our hands out to the sides, and I could feel an unseen force keeping our arms from extending any further.
“Medusa, I don’t understand. What are you saying?” She spoke in riddles most of the time. I needed answers, real answers, and fast.
“You must free me. Break the statue.”
She couldn’t be serious. The second I did, Hades would take her.
“Not if I’m inside another.”
All this mind-reading was really making it difficult to think. “Inside another. How?”
“Think about it, Jodi. It’s what you do, right?”
She wanted me to free her soul and then place it inside another body.
“Not just any body.” She stared into my eyes, looking into my soul. “Your body, Jodi.”
“I’m not even in my own body.”
“But you could be.” She gave me a brave smile. “You’d have to say goodbye to your human soul forever.”
“Won’t Hades torture it for all eternity? I’ll have this double vision thing forever. I can’t. It will drive me insane. You have no idea the torture I’ve gone through living in both souls.”
“We can bury your human soul under your Ophi one, but for good this time. Deeper than before. You won’t be able to access it ever again. It won’t be easy.”
Nothing I ever did was easy. “Okay, let’s say I can do that, get my human soul back in my body and bury it there. How do you expect me to get you free?”
“I can give this body—”
“Her name was Liz.” I didn’t want to treat Liz’s body like an empty shell or an old coat I was borrowing. Liz had helped me get to Medusa. Her body deserved to be taken care of and treated fairly. I hadn’t done a good job of protecting it. The least I could do now was speak properly, respectfully, about it.
Medusa nodded. “I can give Liz’s body enough power for you to remain inside it long enough to break the statue. Once my soul escapes, you’ll need to let go. That’s all. Liz’s body doesn’t want to hold you inside, and my power will wear off from the exertion. We’ll go to the underworld together.”
And Hades would sense Medusa’s soul like a big, blinking, red light flashing the words “Come and get me!”
“You’ll need to act quickly. Rebury your human soul and then find me. Call me to your own body. Force me inside. I will try not to resist you, no matter how unpleasant the experience is for me.”
I knew what it felt like to be forced into the wrong body. It was painful and…well, I didn’t want to think about putting Medusa through that.
“Don’t worry about me. It won’t be pleasant for you, either. You’ll have both our souls fighting for control of your body.”
“Fighting? Why would we fight?”
“Perhaps fighting isn’t the right word. We’ll be at odds with one another. You’ll have to unite us.”
My head wanted to explode. How was I supposed to unite two souls inside my body?
“Think about how you split your soul. This will be the exact opposite.”
Great. That cleared things up…not at all.
“What will all of this do? Why put your soul inside my body?” She was leaving me out of half the plan, maybe more.
“Hades will recognize my soul inside you. He’ll also know you are too powerful for him to threaten. You’ll have the upper hand.”
“To make another deal?”
“Yes. And this is where you need to be very clear. The deal must be my soul for the safety of all Ophi for all time. You must make him understand that, if he should break his end of the deal in any way—as deemed by you—that you will regain control of my soul once again, and we’d be more powerful than he wants to deal with.”
Could I do that? Could I make demands of a god? I was only one Ophi—well, two with Medusa sharing my body.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t possible.”