“I am serious.”
She turned to face him, squinting as she studied his eyes. “When this is over, we will find a place to store your body. Then I will take your soul.”
Anubis was surprised. “Is it that easy?”
“I’ve always known how to bring you to the Middleworld,” she said. “I simply waited for you to be ready. You put your people first, and I respect that about you. But I did make a deal with Legba long ago that your soul will belong to me.”
Anubis struggled to find words, touched by the gesture. He’d long accepted her sarcasm and aloofness, they were qualities he liked about her. But this felt like something quite different. He cleared his throat. “Where will we store my body, then?”
She stood and smiled. “When this is done, I will show you.”
CHAPTER 9
THE ANCIENT ONES THE NETHERREALMS
lucius
Lucius cracked open an eye.
He lay under a tree, its empty black branches cutting jagged lines across the burnt orange sky, sulfur and smoke filling the air. He sighed, recognizing the dismal realm even without the tormented wails carried along the noxious wind. Back again. He stood, and brushed off his trousers. Charred skulls and torsos surrounded him on all sides, seeming to stretch on infinitely. Many housed ugly brown mushrooms, some with spindly black trees growing out of their spines. He shook his head, annoyed by the mess. “When I ruled down here, it was a beautiful landscape of volcanic mountains and lava,” he informed one of the nearby demons who had come to investigate his arrival. “Now it’s a complete disaster.”
The demon, a spidery looking creature with human eyeballs and bat wings, sniffed him once before cowering in fear.
“I’m looking for someone, an old pagan weather god with curly reddish hair and green eyes,” he told the creature. “Do you know where I can find him?”
The demon looked relieved to learn Lucius wasn’t planning on killing or eating it, and replied by scuttling through a break in the field of bones. Lucius followed as the sky shifted, a mountain gorge appearing before them. He looked up to see the giants that created it, tied together by chains wound so tightly they could not move. He couldn’t believe they were still alive, their labored breaths and eruptions of discontentment audible as he walked through the valley their figures made. He knew them as the Titans, giants cast down by the Olympian gods as they rose in power, long after Lucius left and before he masqueraded as Hades. So large were the Titans, that those who didn’t end up tied together for eternity, found themselves stuck in whatever place they landed. Oceanus became the great Lake of Agony, where souls eternally drowned; Cronus’s rib cage became a prison for murderers; and Hyperion’s fiery jaws were the place where rapists burned.
Lucius pulled his gaze away, wondering where the imp led him. After some time, they reached the end, where a large sphere of wind swirled and spun, crackles of lightning flickering through its agitated clouds. The demon looked up at him as if waiting for payment, but after seeing the look in his eyes, it hurried away.
Lucius marched up to the tornado and inhaled, pressing forward with flattened palms until he created space between squalls. He fell into it blindly, stumbling only for a moment before he found himself in an old cemetery, similar to the one David left behind in England. The wind outside the space howled, but inside was still. The ground beneath his feet felt more mud than grass, and the gravestones were mossy and crumbling. The trees were dead, as were the brown plants that pushed up through the inhospitable earth. The atmosphere suffocated, thick with despair.
He found David lying in the mud, half-sunken and oblivious to Lucius’s presence. His skin bore a sickly shade of gray, and his clothing moldered around his body as if he’d been decaying in the ground for months. He stared listlessly up at the only sign of life—a dozen quiet crows who circled, but never swooped down.
Lucius let out an exasperated sigh. Of course this was his torment—trapped, rotting away in his own muck, lamenting her. He crouched down to meet him at eye level. “Are you going to keep feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to come with me?”
David’s eyes drifted towards him and landed without a flash of recognition. “I’m just resting,” he said in a detached voice.
Lucius rolled his eyes. “Come. You and I both know you don’t belong down here.” He grabbed David’s arm, and began hoisting him to his feet.
David looked bewildered as he complied, staring at the desolate graveyard with saucer eyes. “Where am I?”
“Hell.”
David stared at him blankly until recognition softened the confusion wrinkling his forehead. “Lucius?”
“There you are.” Lucius gave him a stiff pat on the back, sending globs of mud away from his mildewy clothing. “Now I just have to figure out a way to get you out of here.”
David frowned, staring off into the horizon at the swirling shades of gray that created the sky. “Where is she?”
Lucius tried not to let his agitation surface. “On Earth somewhere, I believe. You’ll see her soon enough.”
David turned back to face him, something different in his eyes. “I’ve always thought it was you who was at fault. For eons, I believed the story affirmed by historians—Set, the destructive, wicked god of the Underworld, murdered his twin brother, Osiris, the good and the just, out of jealousy. I thought I was rescuing Nephthys from your clutches, thought I was doing right by running away with her to Ireland.” He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “But it’s all wrong. I was the jealous one. I viewed my life with Isis as a prison, a box of what the world expected of me as their king. You were free to roam the Earth fighting wars, causing mayhem—not bound by expectations. Even your wife was beautiful, passionate, and strong… Although it has taken millennia to clearly see what I should have seen all along, I think a part of me has always known my entire existence was based upon a lie. I am not a hero, nor am I a leader. I am just a jealous brother who stole your entire life away from you. Lucius, please understand how deeply s—”
“Oh no,” Lucius cut him off sharply. “Absolutely not. I came down here to rescue you, and I’ll be damned if you suddenly see the error of your ways and come out on top. For once in your cursed life, let me be the damned hero!”
David blinked. “You came here to rescue me?”
“Yes. Now stop talking before anyone realizes we’re down here.” Lucius grabbed his arm, and pulled him back up the hill to the hole he’d created in the wind. No sooner had they stepped through it, back into the world of stifling air and burning skies, did a giant, demonic wolf block their view.
“No,” Lucius snapped before it spoke. “You tell him I’m not interested in talking. This soul does not belong down here and I am getting rid of him.”
“Lucius, wait, is that Dan?”
The wolf scowled down at them, its red eyes glaring above rows of fangs. “My name is Fenrir. I’ve come here to bring Lucius to the Master.”
“Technically, I am your master. Your father and I made a deal,” Lucius reminded the giant beast. “So, you must reply truthfully to what I ask you: is the soul once bound to you here?”
“Baldr?” the wolf sneered. “I have been rid of him since we entered this realm. He is not here.”
Lucius nodded, disheartened for Cahira. She wasn’t going to take the revelation well. “Fenrir, I need you to escort my brother to the Asphodel Wasteland so he can find his way back.”
The wolf growled. “Master is not going to be pleased with me.”
“Oh, let me handle that obnoxious fool. You just take this one where he needs to go.”
“You’re not coming with me?” David looked confused.
