She was…afraid.
I don’t know what I’d expected upon encountering souls here in this wasteland of the underworld. Ghostlike, waifish figures no more substantial than transparent figures floating about. I hadn’t expected them to appear as solid as me. Jude had been taken, body and soul. But most of Lethe’s victims were souls wandering between death and the afterlife, lost souls Lethe found and fed upon before they could make their way to either heaven or hell. This place was its own kind of damnation—a limbo of nothingness.
After fumbling to screw the attached top back on my water flask, I shoved it back inside my jacket pocket. I lowered my sword but kept it at my side, raising a palm to show I meant no harm.
“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”
She smiled. Her front teeth broken, she was dirty, skin hanging from her bones, and yet somehow I could see she had once been beautiful. Fair skin smoothed over high cheekbones. Though her cheeks sank in too far, they would’ve been the envy of most women of her time when she was nourished and well cared for. I knelt in front of her and realized she was around my age. Or had been at the time of her death.
“Hi.”
Her eyes widened. Her throat moved as she tried to form a reply. A soft, ragged whisper came out. “Hello.”
Her frail hand uncurled from her lap. She touched a crooked finger to the back of my hand where it rested on my knee. With her touch, a wave of infinite loss and hopelessness seared through my soul. It was a reflection of what resonated within her own. She dragged her finger over my knuckles, which glowed faintly with my underlight.
“Pretty.” Her dark eyes met mine, then she curled her hand back into her lap as if remembering her manners. I was relieved, not wanting to feel what echoed in her sad soul.
“Can I ask you something?”
Mira landed with a
whoosh
onto the rock at the woman’s back. She jumped, cringing away.
“Whoa, whoa. It’s okay. She’s with me. She won’t hurt you.”
Mira stared down at the woman, twisting her head to the side like a curious dog in the way that always made me smile.
“Pretty,” said the woman.
“Thank you,” I said, accepting the compliment on Mira’s behalf. Whether she was a damned soul or not, I’d still be polite. “Can you tell me where there are others? Like you?”
Her vacant eyes met mine again. She blinked twice as if trying to understand my question. She pointed her gnarled finger out toward the wasteland. “Everywhere.”
“Yes. But I don’t see them. Where do they go?”
“Away.” She curled into a ball on her side and closed her eyes.
I didn’t know if she told me that others went away or if she was telling me to go away. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t help me. I looked at Mira, who seemed completely unruffled that we were lost in hell. “Well, let’s get going, then.”
I walked on while Mira soared high above, my scout and lookout. As I made my way deeper into this desolate world, I passed other souls, hiding in nooks and crevices of rock. All of them cowered if I approached, covering their heads with their hands. I wondered what or who they were afraid of. I’d not seen any malicious demons or creatures. Not yet anyway.
I’d sheathed my sword, having found no threat. As I traveled deeper, the black rock transformed into fine gray dust. The terrain began to change when I reached the foothills of the mountains I’d seen crossing through the veil. The cliffs jutted high and far, and lightning licked the sky above. I craned my neck, unable to find the top where they vanished into the inky sky. As they had in the Black Forest, naked trees clustered along the base.
And still, I couldn’t sense the bond with Jude. But I’d never give in to despair. I was here, and I knew he was here, too…somewhere. I passed through a copse of trees, stopping short when I heard a scuffling and snarling, then sudden wailing.
Unsheathing my katana, I sprinted closer, concealing myself behind a thick trunk. Along the path was a ghastly site. Three hideous demons—two naked and scrawny and one bulky with three horns jutting out of his head—circled a young man, clothes torn and ragged. The two smaller demons were pot-bellied with long, skinny limbs, wide, fanged mouths and serpent-like red eyes. They held a net between them and tossed it over their cowering victim with a gleeful cackle.
“Bind him,” said the big one, tossing a set of chains with ankle and arm cuffs onto the ground. He held a wooden club in his clawed hand and wore a sleeveless black tunic of a finer material. When he turned up the trail, a ratlike tail snaked behind him from the bottom of his tunic. He stood on hooves, reminding me somewhat of the Fury I’d encountered in Jude’s courtyard not long ago. But his dominant gait and clothing denoted him as someone with some power.
The cackling demon scuttled on all fours to the chains, apparently excited to do its master’s bidding.
“No! No!” The man under the net kicked and fought, but it was certain he would be their prisoner.
Not if I could help it.
I stepped from behind the tree. “Three to one. Kind of unfair, don’t you think?”
The smaller demons hissed. The one holding the net over the man lunged toward me as I’d hoped. With a swift sweep of the katana, I lopped off his head, and it rolled across the ashen ground.
The second, smaller demon shrieked and scampered toward me like a spider, fangs bared, spinning as he came. I swung, but my blade skimmed the creature’s shoulder. It circled behind me. I leapt closer to the trees, not wanting to give the big one my back. The cackling demon caught my leg and literally climbed me, claws digging into my leather pants. I gripped its throat as it snapped its jaws at my face.
“
Flamma intus
.” I squeezed its throat, my VS power zinging through my body straight down my arm and into the foul monster. Its red eyes flew wide. With a squeal, it exploded in a puff of ash and white sparks.
The leader of the trio stepped slowly around its captive, who stared out at the display through the netting.
“What are you?” asked the three-horned demon.
Moving with wicked stealth for one on hooves, he circled. I countered the other direction, two-handing my katana, waiting for his attack.
“You are not a pet of Lethe’s.”
Pet? That was how he saw these poor souls wandering here for him to torture at will.
“No,” I answered. “I’m not one of Lethe’s.”
“You are…different.”
I’ll say.
I readied for his attack as his red eyes narrowed. A wailing screech lifted our gazes to the sky. Mira dove like a bomb into the clearing, swooping with talons extended. Before the demon could swing his club, Mira clawed his arm, blue-white fire licking up from the wound. The demon stumbled backward, screaming and flailing as fey fire crawled up his arm, over his face and down his torso until it consumed his entire body and he could scream no more. With a whirlpool of wind, white flames and ash twisted into a tornado, then vanished into the ether.
Slack-jawed, I stared at Mira, who now perched calmly on a branch above the smoking bones, hooves and horns. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”
She opened one wing and scratched an itch with her beak, then settled back into place, giving me this laissez-faire look as if clawing a demon and burning him to ash was normal.
Okay. So my spawn had power of her own. Good to know. I moved to the edge of the net and lifted. The man crawled out on all fours and rolled to his back, holding his arms above his head. No, not a man. A boy, possibly mid-teens. Shriveled with wrinkles, his emaciated face and body aged him considerably. His eyes were hollow and black, though the whites of his eyes still shone bright. His teeth and fingernails were gritted with filth. His clothes were dingy and soiled with God knew what, but I could see the unmistakable outline of Spider-Man on his T-shirt underneath the grime. The modern icon and the spark clinging to his eyes told me he hadn’t been in the underworld long. I didn’t even want to consider what manner of death had brought this teen here.
“Don’t take me to him.
Please
, don’t—don’t take me to him.” He stuttered and stammered like a frightened boy. Sliding my sword back in its place, I tried for the universal sign of
I mean no harm
, holding my palms out as I had to the other woman on the plane.
“Look”—I pointed to the skeletal corpse of the demon who had intended to drag him off as some sort of bounty—“he’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“N-n-not him. The master.”
My VS lit to life, prompting me to take heed. This wasn’t mindless babble. I squatted on my haunches, bracing my forearms on my knees. “And where does the master live?”
With a tremulous hand, he pointed toward a peak just beyond the trees. Soundless lightning lit the sky, revealing the silhouette of a fortress on a cliff’s edge. Having come so close to the mountainside, I could even see tiny pinpricks of hazy yellow light. Windows. A knowing swirled in my gut as I stood, peering over the naked tree line.
“That’s where we must go, Mira.” She chirped in agreement.
“No, no, no, no, no…” The boy scurried off in the opposite direction, slipping out the way we’d come.
I glanced at Mira. “No personal escort, I’m afraid.” I stepped over the ashen heap of demon and followed the path toward the fortress on the cliff. My underlight blazed bright with each step toward the mountain. I mumbled the words to cast illusion, not wanting to forewarn demons on guard for this master. My illusion would hide my glow, but not me. I pulled up the hood of my mantle, covering as much skin as I could, wanting to blend with the bleak surroundings. Now that I’d encountered a gang of nasty demons, chances were there would be more about.
Another internal switch flipped on the second I stepped out of the shadow of the trees. The sensation buckled my knees and dropped me to the ground—the distinct signature of flickering flame and impenetrable iron washed over my entire body like the sweetest balm in the driest desert. I breathed in a ragged breath.
“Jude.”
Chapter Nine
I sensed him, even far below the fortress. My VS pulsed strong along the bond I shared with Jude. Mira swooped low and landed beside me, chirping with nervous agitation.
“I’m fine.” I picked myself back up again. “He’s there, Mira.” I dusted off my knees and leapt into a jog, trying to reach the edge of the cliff, then almost tumbling into a giant chasm.
“Ah!” I caught myself, my toe slipping over the edge, knocking gravel loose.
A sprinkling splash revealed this wasn’t a chasm. Lightning flashed again, revealing a wide, winding river, blacker than the earth, dividing me from the other side where the fortress stood on a mountain peak.
“Mira,” I whispered, realizing we were about to cross the border into another soul eater’s realm. She landed on my outstretched arm. “I’ll need to sift across, but I need you to be my eyes. Go over and tell me if it’s safe for crossing.”
She clicked her beak and winged across, her faint glow shining on the water, shimmering like a diamond on black glass.
Sifting could only be done to a place you knew or could see and visualize plainly, as if you’d been there before. I only hoped there was no invisible veil marking the division of kingdoms. But Uriel had said nothing about that. Of course, Uriel had never been here. The information he transferred to me had been gathered from a captured demon long ago. I hadn’t asked what devices had been used to extract such a secret. I knew by now the stereotype of angels in white robes singing on puffy clouds was false.
A few seconds later, Mira swooped back with her guttural chirp. With grim determination, I stared across the stygian water, barely able to see the bank on the other side. Mira perched on something, her white glow in the darkness giving me a visual. Closing my eyes and saying a prayer, I sifted.
Two seconds later, I stood next to Mira, who perched on a jagged crag of the mountain. I glanced back and forth, wary of demons now that I knew they were out and about. The atmosphere on this side was heavier, denser, more sinister than the air in Lethe’s realm. I put my hand to my chest.
“Can you feel it?” I whispered.
She clicked her beak, twisting her sharp hawk gaze in every direction. I realized it would’ve been a huge mistake to leave Mira at home. I needed her if I was going to make it through this alive. Lethe was a ghostly wasteland. Here, malevolence rippled in the air like a sentient being.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I don’t want to walk around too far in this place. I’ll sift short lengths. You move ahead and let me know it’s safe.”
And so we traveled along the base of the mountain. I’d sift as far as I could see, perhaps fifty yards at a time. No encounters with damned souls or demons.
Not until we started moving up the mountainside.
Upon the third sift to a mountain ledge, I saw the flickering of flame throwing long shadows on a cavern wall. I peered around the cliff’s edge where I’d landed to see an open space. Five demons in black tunics sat around a fire roasting a leg of something on a spit. The rancid smell made my stomach churn and bile rise in my throat.
“This one’ll be tasty,” slurred a six-horned demon, ripping a piece of flesh from the roasting meat.