“Do not be gone too long,” Ashera demanded.
Lucius was overwhelmed by the desire to stay, but he noticed a demon’s tentacles snaking out of the opened crack, causing Cerberus to emit a low growl. He looked back at the twins. “I will come back,” he assured them, giving them both a firm kiss on their heads before bracing himself and tumbling into the fiery, gaping hole.
But he was not met with the familiar smells of sulfur and ash as he expected. Instead, he was hit with a cool wind. His eyes stung from a blinding light that accosted him, and he squinted, trying to see what was in front of him. The sinking realization hit him just as his eyes came into focus.
Michael’s normally indifferent expression was twisted in anger. A group of angels surrounded him, drenched in sweat and blood as if they’d been fighting, though Michael remained conspicuously clean. “Do you have any idea what you have done?” he sputtered.
“You can be mad at me all you wish, but I regret nothing,” Lucius snapped. “Wiping out an entire race over the mistakes of a few is despicable—even I can see that.”
“How dare you assume to tell us what is right and what is wrong!” shouted Raphael, quivering with rage. “You are not God—you are an detestable creature from the depths of hell!”
“Then send me back there.” Lucius shrugged.
“You will tell us where you stashed the rest of the giants and we will let you leave,” Michael said through gritted teeth. “Hopefully we can find them and resolve this before the Holy One finds out.”
Lucius snorted. “What makes you think I have any idea?”
Michael peered at him. “You agreed to work for us so I would reveal to you the whereabouts of your wife. I know exactly where she is. She and your brother.”
Lucius twitched.
“Tell us where the giants are and I will tell you where Nephthys is.”
The sound of her name threw him. It pulled forth memories of happier times, flooding his mind before he could stop them—the feel of her in his arms, the echo of her laughter reverberating throughout the Underworld, the way she spent time with each soul who descended. How her brow furrowed over her bright eyes as she created the layers of their realm with artful vision and strategic design. How she could never be still, a restless energy coursing through her veins—just like in his—satisfied only in their brief moments of bliss before she’d be off again, searching for something else… The way she used his love for her to trick him into capture, how she turned away when they tied him up, preparing to bleed him to save Osiris. How he waited for her to intervene, and his heart-wrenching disbelief when she never did.
The visions ended with the image of the twins, shivering as they waited for him in the cave.
“She has made her choice many times,” he told Michael quietly. “I no longer care where she is.”
Michael growled in frustration, unsheathing his sword. “Do you not understand that you serve us now?”
Lucius scoffed. “I serve no one.”
“I banish you from this realm and all others, you worthless wretch!” Michael spat. “May you be hated and scorned for as long as you live out your days.”
The angels advanced, surrounding him as he shielded himself with his arms. He refused to cry out as they took to his wings, ripping until there was nothing left but bloody stumps. Lucius shook with pain, powerless as Michael broke through the throng of celestial beings to drive his sword into his stomach with triumphant glee.
Lucius’s jaw dropped. He staggered backwards as the blood gushed between hands that tried to hold the gaping wound together. His dizziness brought back recollections of the first time he died, when the blood from his cut throat splattered the floor as his family looked on. The familiar slipping sensation engulfed him now, but this time, he fell from the towers of the heavenly realm, through the fabric that separated it from Earth, all the way to its desert floor, where he landed with a horrible crack. He wheezed for breath between shattered ribs as the ground beneath him trembled, finally splitting open to swallow him. He plummeted through layers of rock, squeezing his eyes shut as the jagged tunnel scraped at his skin as he smacked against the sides. Just when he thought he could bear it no longer, the tunnel narrowed, and he was met with the sensation of being squeezed before he was finally expelled with a loud pop.
Yet again, he did not land in the fiery halls of Tartarus as expected, but lay panting in a realm that was shadowy, dark...and oddly familiar. He bolted upright. He was in the Underworld.
His eyes adjusted to the visage of Anubis looming above him, and he quickly realized his broken body had been mercifully restored. The death god cocked his head to the side as he studied him, the midnight fur of his jackal visage bringing out the brilliance of his blue eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked. “You are not human.” He looked exactly as Lucius remembered him—an impressive human physique with gold and lapis lazuli necklaces across his muscular chest and gold cuffs at his wrists, his entire face obscured, save for his eyes. Eyes that shone like his mother’s.
Lucius’s mind worked quickly, and he winced as he climbed to his feet. While his bones were no longer broken and the wound in his stomach healed, his back still throbbed where they had torn out his wings, the sores painfully fresh under his tunic. “I am a death god,” he lied, “created by the Greeks.”
Miraculously, Anubis believed him. “Ah, I have been waiting for more gods to arrive.” He thrust out a muscular arm to assist him.
On his feet, Lucius surveyed his surroundings. They stood in what appeared to be a colossal cave, similar to the realm he once occupied, but far more bleak and dismal. It presented itself like an inverted version of the warm and lively Nephilim grotto, the ceilings covered in stalactite that hung over a glassy, caliginous lake.
“The place where we stand is the original Underworld, a landing place for souls,” Anubis explained. “From here, I either guide them down the shore to my realm—the Egyptian Duat—so their souls can be weighed, or I direct them to the east to Kur, the death realm ruled by Queen Ereshkigal. Beyond the lake lies a vast amount of unclaimed space, if you are interested in creating your own realm there.”
Lucius peered at him, amazed Anubis was unable to recognize him. He looked down at his hands, and realized he was still wearing the visage Michael had created for him, save for his torn, bloody wings. “Yes, that would be fine, thank you,” he said.
“I realize this seems a bit odd,” Anubis said with a sigh. “My uncle and my mother once ran this entire operation, but it has been left in my hands. I have been trying to make room for all of us down here so we can live in peace, like they managed to do in the Upperrealms.”
“The Upperrealms?”
Anubis nodded. “Once my mother and father died, they ascended to a realm far away from my uncle. He murdered my father and was imprisoned in Tartarus, the infernal realm beyond this one. Since that time, the humans have devised new gods and goddesses. Ereshkigal, the Sumerian goddess, landed here just as confused as you were, but we were able to make arrangements that suited her. I have been waiting for more gods since then, as the human population has been rapidly expanding.”
Lucius nodded, trying to keep his facial expression calm as the revelation settled in on him. So that was where Nephthys and Osiris were. Together in another realm they’d created for themselves. The thought of it made him shake with rage and he swallowed, reminding himself that he needed to find a way back to the twins. “Well, I appreciate your hospitality,” he managed.
“Of course. But you must excuse me, this job does not offer me very much time for anything else. The rules of the Netherworld simply state that if you are meant to be here, you can bend it to your liking. I only ask that you respect our boundaries. I am the first being anyone sees, but I will send any Greek souls across the river to your realm.”
“Thank you again,” Lucius said.
Anubis nodded and faded into the shadows.
Once alone, Lucius let out a roar of frustration. He peered across the placid river stretching out before him with a scowl. Of course he could bend the realm—he was the one who built it—but he had to find a way to leave without raising suspicion. It felt like only an hour since he’d left the twins, and he hoped with all his might it hadn’t been any longer.
He shifted his focus to the surface of the lake, funneling energy until he saw a boat materialize out of the murky gloom. It was paddled by an old man with a dirty beard so long it grazed its hull.
As soon as the tip of the boat reached the shore, Lucius approached. The man’s eyes were hollow, black voids contained in a weathered, expressionless face.
“I need your assistance,” Lucius said, undeterred. “I must find a way to leave this place, but I will need a realm built in my absence. In it, I will need a palace erected with enough space for children. It must be black—not a single piece should be described as white or bright. In return, I will name you gatekeeper and for each soul that crosses your river, you can keep the toll.”
The old man’s face remained blank, but he nodded. He used his oar to push the boat away from shore, turning it until he was headed back from whence he came.
